ALS signed “J. Fenimore Cooper,” one page, 7.75 x 9.75, January 22, 1841. Letter to Boston publisher George Roberts. In part: “I cannot help you to a copy of the tale. After all it is scarce worth the trouble of a search, nor as I know that it would at all suit the taste of the majority of readers. I very well remember some ladies speaking of Heart as a better story than Imagination. Though as I recalled than the latter is infinitely the best. It would not tally with my notion to publish a novel in the way you mention. I could not do it without putting at risk several thousands of dollars…Nor should I like to publish a novel in this form at all. It requires a particular sort of composition for such a plan & the desultory digressive manner—and my practice of writing is diametrically opposed to it…I am about to publish an answer to the attacks on the Naval History…Still I think the articles might appear simultaneously, or nearly so, and they will, or ought, to have general interest, as they are connected with important historical facts. I say ought, with complain, however, because I very well know the American people are so prejudiced and dogmatical that is no easy matter to make them read evidence, however conclusive, that overcomes any cherished opinion." In fine condition, with intersecting folds (one vertical fold passing through a single letter of the signature), a tiny hole to the lower left (affecting no writing), and slightly trimmed edges. Both stories Cooper mentions at the beginning, “Heart” and “Imagination”—which he had initially written and published many years before, in 1823—were then reprinted in Roberts’s Boston Notion periodical, with “Imagination” featured just a week after the date of this letter, and “Heart” appearing in March. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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