New York
by James Fenimore Cooper
{Text transcribed and annotated by Hugh MacDougall, Founder andSecretary/Treasurer of the James Fenimore Cooper Society, whowill appreciate corrections and comments at jfcooper@wpe.com. Allmaterial not from Cooper's text is enclosed in {curly} brackets.
{Introductory Note: In 1851, just before his death on the eve ofhis 62nd birthday, James Fenimore Cooper was working a history ofNew York City, for which he planned the title of "The Towns ofManhattan." Cooper never completed it, and most of the parts ofthe manuscript that he did complete were destroyed in a fire atthe printers after his death. The Introduction to the work,however, survived, and was published during the Civil War in "TheSpirit of the Age" (New York: April 5-15, 1864), a fund-raisingpublication of the American Sanitary Commission (predecessor ofthe American Red Cross). Substantial excerpts were reprinted, as"James Fenimore Cooper on Secession and States Rights" in the"Continental Monthly: Devoted to Literature and National Policy,"Vol. 6, No. 1 (July 1864), pp. 79-83.
The "Spirit of the Age"text was much later reprinted in book formunder the title of "New York" (New York: William Farquhar Payson,1930) in a limited edition of 750 copies, with an introduction byDixon Ryan Fox, and was later re-issued in facsimile form(Folcroft: PA., Folcroft Library Editions, 1973) in a limitededition of 100 copies — from which this text is taken.
{A few other surviving fragments from "The Towns of Manhattan"
were compiled in James F. Beard, Jr., "The First of Greater New
York: Unknown Portions of Fenimore Cooper's Last Work" (New York
Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, pp. 109-45,
April 1953).
{The text has been transcribed as written, except that because ofthe limitations of the Gutenberg format, occasional words initalics have been transcribed in ALL CAPITALS. Annotations(identified by {curly} brackets, have been occasionallyadded—identifying allusions, translating foreign terms, andcorrecting a few obvious typographical errors.
{Introduction from "The Spirit of the Fair" (April 5, 1864):
{Unpublished MS. of James Fenimore Cooper.
{Our national novelist died in the autumn of 1850 [sic]; previousto his fatal illness he was engaged upon a historical work, to beentitled "The Men [sic] of Manhattan," only the Introduction towhich had been sent to the press: the printing office wasdestroyed by fire, and with it the opening chapters of this work;fortunately a few pages had been set up, and the impression sentto a literary gentleman, then editor of a popular criticaljournal, and were thus saved from destruction: to him we areindebted for the posthumous articles of Cooper, wherewith, by acoincidence as remarkable as it is auspicious, we now enrich ourcolumns with a contribution from the American pioneer in letters.In discussing the growth of New York and speculating on herfuture destiny, the patriotic and sagacious author seems to haveanticipated the terrible crisis through which the nation is nowpassing; there is a prescience in the views he expresses, whichis all the more impressive inasmuch as they are uttered by avoice now silenced for ever. They have a solemn interest, andwere inspired by a genuine sympathy in the progress andprosperity of the nation. It should be remembered that, whenthese observations were written, the public mind had been and wasstill highly excited by the "Compromise Measures"—the last vainexpedient to propitiate the traitors who have since filled theland with the horrors of civil war.}