Cooper’s novel of Revolutionary-era Boston
Cooper, James Fenimore. Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer of Boston
New York: Charles Wiley, 1825
Two volumes. Original drab boards, printed paper labels, untrimmed. Wear to boards, browning, inner hinges repaired, losses to paper labels. A rare survival in original boards.
First American edition, fine and untrimmed in original boards, of Cooper’s historical novel of the American Revolution. Cooper conceived of Lionel Lincoln as the first in a series of thirteen historical novels—the “Legends of the Thirteen Republics,” as the often-lacking half-titles style it.
Writing to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the beginnings of the American Revolution, Cooper visited Boston in 1824 to study buildings and terrain, visit battlefields, and consult primary sources. George Bancroft declared that in Lionel Lincoln Cooper had “described the battle of Bunker Hill better than it is described in any other work.”
BAL 3832.
$1,500