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James Fenimore Cooper: Two Novels of the American Revolution

The Spy: A Tale of The Neutral Ground | Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer of Boston

Edited by Alan Taylor

“Cooper was always an outdoor influence: he is perennial fresh air, pure seas; a living accuser of our civilization. Our civilization is anyhow a morbid one—introspective, consciously sinful. But Cooper maintained his independence, manhood, from the very first. The Spy, all the sea tales, Long Tom Coffin—what a creation that!”—Walt Whitman

Overview

Overview

Interviews John Logan on James Fenimore Cooper: “Dive in and get reading”
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Interviews James Fenimore Cooper reveals “deeply hidden truths” about the American Revolution
December 14, 2018

With his second novel, The Spy: A Tale of The Neutral Ground, published in 1821, James Fenimore Cooper found his true voice and his most enduring subject matter: the history of his young nation, born of the clash between Old World and New. Eager to prove that “American manners and American scenes” could be a rich field for fiction, Cooper turned to the American Revolution as a backdrop for homegrown historical romances in the mode of Walter Scott’s Waverley novels. It was a winning formula: The Spy quickly became America’s first great best seller.

Set largely in the “Neutral Ground” of New York’s Westchester County―site of the real-life intrigues of Benedict Arnold and Major John André―The Spy traces the conflicting allegiances of patriots and loyalists prey to marauding partisans on both sides. Its central figure, Harvey Birch, an itinerant peddler suspected of being a traitor to the American cause, is the kind of outsider hero Cooper would perfect in Natty Bumppo, a loner never fully acknowledged by those whose survival he helps ensure. Cooper’s depiction of the moral dilemmas of the Revolutionary era is nuanced and sometimes deeply ambiguous, befitting an author whose dubious family fortune had been built on confiscated loyalist property, and who had himself married into a once-prominent loyalist clan. Full of unexpected twists, vigorous of military action, and occasional bursts of melodrama, The Spy drives toward a conclusion that is one of the most moving scenes in all Cooper’s fiction. It is presented here with C. LeRoy Baldridge’s stylish illustrations from the 1924 edition.

Long praised for its historical accuracy, Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer of Boston (1825) is the suspenseful story of a native-born American serving in the British Army. It is set against a carefully researched panorama of the coming of the Revolution in and around Boston, complete with vivid depictions of the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. Once again, issues of divided loyalty come into play: “Cooper was sensitive to the moral ambiguities of a war many wanted simply to celebrate,” writes acclaimed historian Alan Taylor in his introduction, “and with the voices of the Revolutionary generation falling silent, he understood that fiction could reveal these uncertainties with a force and immediacy that no other medium could match.”

Alan Taylor is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Chair at the University of Virginia and the author of many books on early America, including the Pulitzer Prize‒winning William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic and American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Two Novels of the American Revolution is kept in print by a gift from John Logan to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.

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ISBN: 978-1-59853-582-2 874 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 312 Library of America Series

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