But at this time no work of his was treated fairly by the American press. His name was rarely mentioned save in censure or derision. Both "The Pathfinder" and "The Deerslayer" on their first appearance were violently assailed. It is giving praise to a good deal of the contemporary criticism passed upon them to call it merely feeble and senseless. Much of it was marked by a malignity which fortunately was as contemptible intellectually as it was morally. Still, neither this hostile criticism nor Cooper's own personal unpopularity hindered the success of the books. He says, to be sure, in the preface to the revised edition of the Leather-Stocking tales which came out towards the end of his life, that probably not one in ten of those who knew all about the three earlier works of the series had any knowledge of the existence of the two last. This assertion seems exaggerated. It certainly struck many with surprise at the time it was made; for both "The Pathfinder" (p. 242) and "The Deerslayer" had met with a large sale. Between the publication of these two novels appeared, on the 24th of November, 1840, "Mercedes of Castile." The subject of this was the first voyage of Columbus. It had several very obvious defects. It was marred by that prolixity of introduction which was a fault that ran through the majority of Cooper's tales. The reader meets with as many discouragements and rebuffs and turnings aside in getting under way as did the great navigator the story celebrates. There was, moreover, an excess of that cheap moralizing, that dwelling upon commonplace truths, which was another of Cooper's besetting sins. The only effect these discourses have upon the reader is to make him feel that while virtue may be a very good thing, it is an excessively tedious thing. As a novel, "Mercedes of Castile" must be regarded as a failure. On the other hand, as a story of the first voyage of Columbus, told with the special knowledge of a seaman, the accuracy of an historian, and with something of the fervor of a poet, it will always have a peculiar interest of its own.