"OUR FIRST IMPORTANT NOVELIST": FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF COOPER'S THE PATHFINDER, IN ORIGINAL CLOTH

COOPER, James Fenimore. The Pathfinder: Or, The Inland Sea. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840. Two volumes. Octavo, original plum cloth, original paper spine labels. $3000.

First American edition, first issue, of the fourth Leatherstocking Tale, scarce in original cloth. Published just weeks after the English edition.

"Cooper had already established himself as America's most prolific and successful author to date… our first important novelist" (Winterich, 9). The Pathfinder, which recounts Natty Bumppo's adventures during the French and Indian Wars, is the fourth of Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales" according to publication, but the third according to the series' internal chronology. It includes one of the author's best-written episodes, featuring his most successful Native American heroine, Dew-of-June, and the siege of the blockhouse. "Readers in all nations where American books have been read at all have regarded [Natty Bumppo] as a supreme characterization in our native literature" (Downs, 75). "Probably printed first in Philadelphia by T.K. and P.G. Collins for Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia"; the London edition appeared on February 25, 1840 and this American edition on March 14 (Spiller & Blackburn 30). First issue, with no copyright notice in Volume I and verso of title page (page [2]) unnumbered. BAL 3892.

Interiors with scattered foxing and faint evidence of dampstaining. Paper labels slightly rubbed and spines sunned, minor discoloration to cloth. A very good copy, in notoriously fragile original publisher's binding.