“THE MOST VIVID ILLUSTRATIONS OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM, ENTERPRISE, AND COURAGE”

COOPER, James Fenimore. The History of the Navy of the United States of America. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1840. Two volumes. Octavo, 19th-century full speckled tan calf, dark red leather spine labels. $350.

Second edition of Cooper’s history of the U.S. Navy, with corrections, additions, and a new preface and index.

"The work of an unsurpassed writer; it is so full of interest and so abounds in the most vivid illustrations of American patriotism, enterprise, and courage, that it cannot be too widely circulated" (Allibone I:425). Cooper, who had joined the navy at age 16, was already famous for his Leatherstocking Tales when he wrote his long-projected History of the Navy of the United States of America. "There can be no question about the importance of Cooper's place as a naval historian. He was, after all, the first to make any systematic attempt to cover the whole field from the earliest colonial sea fights onward… Cooper undertook to carry the history of the Navy from A to Z and succeeded ("Cooper as a Naval Historian," Walter Muir Whitehill). The first edition was published one year earlier. Frontispiece map in each volume. Sabin 16442. Howes C748. BAL 3894. Inked owner name dated 1851.

Light foxing to contents; spines with minor rubbing and toning. A handsome set of the scarce second edition, in 19th-century boards.