“THE INCIDENTS OF THIS TALE MUST BE SOUGHT IN A REMOTE PERIOD OF THE ANNALS OF AMERICA”

COOPER, James Fenimore. The Wept of Wish Ton-Wish: a Tale; by the Author of The Pioneers, Prairie, &c. &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1829. Two volumes. Small octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown calf rebacked. $1100.

First American edition of Cooper’s ninth novel.

"Playfully challenged by his wife's cousin to write a better book than one he was reading aloud, Cooper, after a false start, produced Precaution (1820), an imitation of an English novel of manners, which, though weak, brought him to the attention of the New York literary world" (ANB). This, his ninth novel, tells the story of a woman abducted by Indians as a small child, who later returns as an adult to her Puritan town, now the wife of a one of a band of marauding Indians. Preceeded by one month by the English edition, which was titled The Borderers. Bound without half-titles. With six pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear of Volume II. Spiller & Blackburn A11. BAL 3844. Faint owner signature in Volume I.

Occasional light scattered foxing to interiors. Binding fine and handsome.