Cooper wrote Andrew Thompson Goodrich, his first publisher, on 31 May 1820, that _Precaution_ had been preceded by an experimental effort to write a short moral tale. Mrs. Opie's _Simple Tales_ (1807) and _Tales of Real Life_ (1813) would have been among the obvious models. Finding the tale "swell to a rather unwieldy size," Cooper explained, "I destroy'd the manuscript and changed it to a novel." _Precaution_, which was completed on 12 June 1820, was probably written within a month; and before the novel had begun its tortuous way through the press, Cooper commenced the writing of _The Spy_. By 28 June he had completed "about sixty pages," presumably manuscript pages; and as the writing proceeded and his enthusiasm for the new work mounted, his expectations for the success of _Precaution_ diminished. He wrote Goodrich on 12 July: "The 'Spy' goes on slowly and will not be finish'd until late in the fall--I take more pains with it--as it is to be an American novel professedly." In fact, The Spy was completed only a short time before its publication in New York on 22 December 1821. During the eighteen months between the inception and publication of _The Spy_ Cooper saw _Precaution_ through the press, joined the New York literary circle which frequented Charles Wiley's bookshop, transferred his publishing business to Wiley, wrote three or four long book reviews for his friend Charles K. Gardner's _Literary and Scientific Repository_, finished _The Spy_, and commenced _The Pioneers_. While the period was, thus, not devoid of literary activity, it was, as the 1831 Preface to _The Spy_ confessed, a period of acute uncertainty. Having discovered his literary talent, Cooper had yet to discover how to use it profitably, had indeed to be reassured of its true direction. He could not afford to write at all unless he could make his new profession pay handsomely. _Precaution_ had been a deliberate attempt to produce a bestseller, and it succeeded only moderately. As the Preface to the first edition of _The Spy_ indicates, Cooper experienced severe self-doubts and self-questionings about this experiment. For an extended period, most probably during the first six months of 1821, he abandoned work on _The Spy_, which had been noticed as in press in the January issue of the _Repository_, fearing that the book could not succeed. It was almost certainly during this time that he conceived and partly executed another literary project of which _Tales for Fifteen_ is the abortive remains.