Oct 26, 2023 - Sale 2650

Sale 2650 - Lot 101

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
COOPER, JAMES FENIMORE. Autograph Letter Signed, "J. Fenimore Cooper," to diplomat and librarian of New York Historical Society George Folsom ("Sir"), clarifying his intentions for a proposed publication concerning the Battle of Lake Erie, expressing worry that the publication might indirectly damage the reputation of one of his critics, and determining to pause discussion of the proposed publication until the completion of a related trial. 1 page, 4to, with integral address leaf; docketing written vertically on address leaf, folds. Cooperstown, 6 February 1843
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"I fear Mr De Peyster [James de Peyster Ogden?] has not understood me. I mentioned to him a disposition to take out the controversy from a certain reply I had proposed to Messrs MacKenzie, Burges &c, concerning the battle of Lake Erie, and to give what was left as Lectures. Still I was averse to touching the subject publicly while Mr. MacKenzie is in his present strait. I cannot defend the truth, in this matter, without indirectly assailing--I might almost say destroying him, in the view of intelligent men. Otherwise I should not do justice in this to myself or my subject. The public is not at all aware how far the advocates of Com. Perry have committed themselves, or how closely their exposure is connected with a demonstration of the truth.
"Under the circumstances, thus, I must let the matter rest until this trial, at least, is gone through with. When that is decided, the coast may be clear. This trial will consume a month, I think--probably more time; and, as soon as the river opens in March, I shall be in New York, when I will see you on this subject. I shall have a good deal of trouble in rewriting the matter, but, possibly I may make up my mind to lecture extemporaneously."
When his History of the Navy of the United States of America was first published in 1839, Cooper believed he had achieved a masterwork, and the initial reviews reinforced his sense of success. Soon, however, a firestorm of controversy was ignited by a small part of the work: Cooper's account of the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie. Reviews by Navy Captain Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, former Congressman Tristam Burges, and others, criticized both the accuracy of the account, and Cooper's patriotism. In reply to his critics, Cooper wrote The Battle of Lake Erie: or Answers to Messrs. Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie, published in 1843, and Proceedings of the Naval Court Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, published the following year.