James Fenimore Cooper: American Men of LettersLounsbury, Thomas Raynesford
General
James Fenimore Cooper: American Men of Letters
Lounsbury, Thomas Raynesford
Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851; Novelists, American -- 19th century -- Biography
he said afterward, in speaking of "The Spy," "most of you received
with a generous welcome that might have satisfied any one that the
heart of this great community is sound." Certain it is that the
success of the novel was assured in America some time before the
character of its reception in Europe was known.
The printed volume was offered to the London publisher Murray, and for
terms he was referred to Irving, who was then in England. Murray gave
the novel for examination to Gifford, the editor of the "Quarterly."
By his advice it was declined,--a result that might easily have been
foretold from the hostility of the man to this country. He had made
his review an organ of the most persistent depreciation and abuse of
America and everything American. A new writer from this side of the
ocean was little likely to meet with any favor in his sight, especially
when his subject was one that from its very nature could not be
flattering to British prejudices. Murray having refused, another
publisher was found in Miller, who had also been the first to bring
out Irving's "Sketch Book." Early in 1822 the work appeared in England.
There its success was full as great as it had been in America. This novel,
in fact, made Cooper's reputation both at home and abroad. It is (p. 036)
important to bear this in mind, because it is a common notion that it
was his delineations of Indian life that brought him his European
fame. They established it, but they did not originate it. "The Spy"
was a tale of a war, which in character was not essentially different
from any other war. So far as the story painted the incidents of a
struggle in which the English had been unsuccessful, it could have no
right to expect favor from the English public unless there was merit
in the execution of the work independent of the subject. The interest
with which it was read by a people who could not fail to find portions
of it disagreeable, who were moreover accustomed to look with contempt
upon everything of American origin, was the best proof that a novelist
had arisen whose reputation would stretch beyond the narrow limits of
nationality. This was even more strikingly seen, when it came to be
translated. If the English opinion was favorable, the French might
fairly be called enthusiastic. A version was made into that tongue in
the summer of 1822, by the translator of the Waverley Novels. In the
absolute ignorance that existed as to its authorship, the work was
ascribed by several of the Parisian papers to Fanny Wright, who
subsequently achieved a fame of her own as a champion of woman's
privileges and denouncer of woman's wrongs. In spite of its anonymous
character and of some extraordinary blunders in translation, it was
warmly received in France. From that country its reputation in no long
space of time spread in every direction; translations followed one
after another into all the cultivated tongues of modern Europe; and in
all it met the same degree of favor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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