He was unquestionably helped in the end, however, by what in the beginning threatened to be a serious if not insuperable obstacle. He was unable to get any one concerned in the book trade to assume the risk of bringing out "The Spy." That had to be taken by the author himself. In the case of this novel, we know positively that Cooper was not only the owner of the copyright, but of all the edition; that he gave (p. 066) directions as to the terms on which the work was to be furnished to the booksellers, while the publishers, Wiley & Halsted, had no direct interest in it, and received their reward by a commission. It is evident that under this arrangement his profits on the sale were far larger than would usually be the case. Whether he followed the same method in any of his later productions, there seems to be no means of ascertaining. Wiley, however, until his death, continued to be his publisher. "The Last of the Mohicans" went into the hands of Carey & Lea of Philadelphia; and this firm, under various changes of name, continued to bring out the American edition of his novels until the year 1844. It was from the sales in this country that most of the income from his books was derived. England, indeed, brought him a large sum, at least up to the passage of the copyright law of 1838; but he gained little pecuniary benefit from the wide circulation of his works on the European continent, whatever may have been the renown. In regard to France, he said in 1834 after his return, that he had paid in taxes to the government of that country, during his different residences in it, considerably more money than was obtained from the sales of the sheets of fourteen books. In Germany, where his writings had an immense circulation, his receipts were still less.