The Spy

The Spy

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spy, by James Fenimore Cooper
#19 in our series by James Fenimore Cooper
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Title: The Spy
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9845] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 23,

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Language: English
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ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS
THE SPY
A TALE OF THE NEUTRAL GROUND
BY JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
EDITED BY
NATHANIEL WARING BARNES
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN DE PAUW
UNIVERSITY GREENCASTLE, INDIANA

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
"I believe I could write a better story myself!" With these words, since
become famous, James Fenimore Cooper laid aside the English novel
which he was reading aloud to his wife. A few days later he submitted
several pages of manuscript for her approval, and then settled down to
the task of making good his boast. In November, 1820, he gave the

public a novel in two volumes, entitled Precaution. But it was
published anonymously, and dealt with English society in so much the
same way as the average British novel of the time that its author was
thought by many to be an Englishman. It had no originality and no real
merit of any kind. Yet it was the means of inciting Cooper to another
attempt. And this second novel made him famous.
When Precaution appeared, some of Cooper's friends protested against
his weak dependence on British models. Their arguments stirred his
patriotism, and he determined to write another novel, using thoroughly
American material. Accordingly he turned to Westchester County,
where he was then living, a county which had been the scene of much
stirring action during a good part of the Revolutionary War, and
composed _The Spy--A Tale of the Neutral Ground_. This novel was
published in 1821, and was immediately popular, both in this country
and in England. Soon it was translated into French, then into other
foreign languages, until it was read more widely than any other tale of
the century. Cooper had written the first American novel. He had also
struck an original literary vein, and he had gained confidence in himself
as a writer.
Following this pronounced success in authorship, Cooper set to work
on a third book and continued for the remainder of his life to devote
most of his time to writing. Altogether he wrote over thirty novels and
as many more works of a miscellaneous character. But much of this
writing has no interest for us at the present time, especially that which
was occasioned by the many controversies in which the rather
belligerent Cooper involved himself. His work of permanent value after
The Spy falls into two groups, the tales of wilderness life and the sea
tales. Both these groups grew directly out of his experiences in early
life.
Cooper was born on September 15, 1789, in Burlington, New Jersey,
but while still very young he was taken to Cooperstown, on the shores
of Otsego Lake, in central New York. His father owned many thousand
acres of primeval forest about this village, and so through the years of a
free boyhood the young Cooper came to love the wilderness and to

know the characters of border life. When the village school was no
longer adequate, he went to study privately in Albany and later entered
Yale College. But he was not interested in the study of books. When, as
a junior, he was expelled from college, he turned to a career in the navy.
Accordingly in the fall of 1806 he sailed on a merchant ship, the
Sterling, and for the next eleven months saw hard service before the
mast. Soon after this apprenticeship he received a commission as a
midshipman in the United States navy. Although it was a time of peace,
and he saw