Other editions of book The Spy

"I believe I could write a better story myself!" With these words, since become famous, James Fenimore Cooper laid aside the English novel which he was reading aloud to his wife. A few days later he submitted several pages of manuscript for her approval, and then settled down to the task of making good his boast. In November, 1820, he gave the public a novel in two volumes, entitled Precaution. But it was published anonymously, and dealt with English society in so much the same way as the average British novel of the time that its author was thought by many to be an Englishman. It had no originality and no real merit of any kind. Yet it was the means of inciting Cooper to another attempt. And this second novel made him famous.

Written in 1821 to preserve both the memory and the meaning of the American Revolution, The Spy was inspired by accusations made against the men who captured Major Andre, Benedict Arnold's co-conspirator who was executed for espionage in 1870. Cooper's novel centers on Harry Birch, a common man wrongly suspected by the Patriots of acting as a spy for the British.

Printed in an edition limited to 1000 numbered copies by William Edwin Rudge at his Bowling Green Press in New York Ransom, p.222 . Typography and design by Frederic Warde. Twelve color plates printed by offset process in Germany, from pastels by William H. Cotton. With a general introduction by Henry Seidel Canby. Bookplate of previous owner on front pastedown endpaper of each volume. Some fading on spine and top separated on slipcase. xxxv, v ,310; viii ,328; viii ,339, 3 pages. cloth. 12mo..

Harry Birsch is thought to be a loyalist living in the American colonies, but when George Washington offers him money in exchange for sensitive information about the British, Harry scoffs at the idea. He exchanges the information not for the monetary gains, but what he can do for America. And so he begins a journey in which he spies for the Americans in an attempt to win the war. In doing so, he must masquerade as a traitor. The real truth is the secret that can never be revealed lest the reputation of all he holds dear will fall.James Fenimore Cooper is best known for his "leather stocking" novels concerning American Indian life and the frontier. His most famous novel is Last of the Mohicans. The Spy is the first novel with espionage as the main theme and is the novel that garnered him much fame.

Fair+ hardcover. No DJ. FIRST EDITION. Baldridge, C. Le Roy (illustrator). Pages are clean and unmarked. Title page is loose from binding but present. Covers (original blue cloth with applied color illustration paste-down) show edge wear with rubbing/light scuffing. Tearing on spine top edge. Front hinge cracked and loose but binding intact. Previous owner's inscription on end paper.