[Rarebooks] FS: James Fenimore Cooper AUTOGRAPH LETTER: "I regard New York as the most remarkable town in the world"

[Charles Agvent]

COOPER, James Fenimore. AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (ALS): "I regard New 
York as the most remarkable town in the world." Cooperstown, 23 October 
1850. An incredible 3-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED on two sheets of 
8-1/2" x 6-7/8" paper by the author of THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS written 
on behalf of James Henry Hackett (1800--1871) to his old friend Charles 
Augustus Murray (1806--1895) who was at this time consul-general in 
Egypt. In part: After imparting news of Hackett, Cooper reports on his 
age and on the development of his country: "Half my time passes me, in 
looking back. At sixty, if a man is ever to sum up the good and evil of 
his past life, it is high time he began. I was sixty-one last September 
and have grown gray. We are 'progressing' as we Americans call it, at a 
famous rate. New York must have doubled its population, recently, since 
you saw it.... Taking all things together, I regard New York as the most 
remarkable town in the world.... Trade is driving all before it, and has 
fairly invaded Broadway.... Talking of the dust, which is so shortly to 
be my portion [Cooper died the next year], one of the most painful of my 
recollections of my own travels, is the great number of the dead, among 
the acquaintances I made. At one time it really seemed as if to know me 
was to die.... My eldest daughter, whom you may remember, has ventured 
to give the world a book called 'Rural Hours.' In this country it has 
done very well.... There is a good deal of rumbling in our body politic, 
but I think nothing will come of it, just now. The South has too much at 
stake to risk, and every day it loses, increases the disparity of the 
forces. This acquisition of California, hems in slavery, which must 
finally fall of its own weight. What we are to do with the blacks, God 
knows, but we shall never amalgamate." Cooper goes on to discuss the 
importance of gold in expanding business ("a circulating medium being 
the great necessity of America") and devotes a paragraph to a paranormal 
phenomenon which he calls "the knockings": "All attempts at explanation 
are failures. They are not confined to one family, or one place, but 
have been heard in fifty places." He closes "Do not ask Hackett about my 
comedy, premature damnation being best forgotten." Housed in a cloth 
folder titled on the spine. Fine condition with dark ink in a Fine 
folder of this exceptional letter.

Hackett was a successful character actor on the New York and London 
stages, who was considered for a part in Cooper's sole and unsuccessful 
attempt at playwriting, UPSIDE DOWN. This letter was given to Hackett to 
present to Murray in London (and is noted by James F. Beard ed., LETTERS 
AND JOURNALS OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: 6:229, n.2 as "unlocated"). 
(#016451)        $7,500.00

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