“BY WHAT AUTHORITY DARE YOU LAY HANDS ON A BRITISH GRENADIER!”: FIRST EDITION OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER’S LIONEL LINCOLN, 1825

COOPER, James Fenimore. Lionel Lincoln; or, the Leaguer of Boston. By the Author of The Pioneers, Pilot, &c. New York: Charles Wiley, 1825. Two volumes. Small octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown calf rebacked. $650.

First edition of Cooper’s fifth novel.

“Playfully challenged by his wife’s cousin to write a better book than one he was reading aloud, Cooper, after a false start, produced Precaution (1820), an imitation of an English novel of manners, which, though weak, brought him to the attention of the New York literary world” (ANB). Set during the American Revolution, Lionel Lincoln is the story of a Loyalist American. Bound with fly-titles. Spiller & Blackburn A6. BAL 3832. Faint owner signature in Volume I.

Interior generally quite clean. Binding fine and handsome.