The Spy : A Tale Of Neutral Ground : First Spy Novel Ever Published !

by James Fenimore Cooper Publisher : American Book Company Year : 1915 Pages : 463 Condition : Very Good Binding : Hardcover Price : $59.95

Item Description :

American Book Co., 1915. FIRST EDITION, thus. Very good condition, tan covers. Edited by Nathaniel W Barnes. The Spy was a major literary gamble. Prior to Cooper, writers, philosophers, the military, and people in general, although they certainly knew otherwise, simply chose not to admit that spies existed or that they were in any way beneficial to the aims of "great nations." In their minds, the spy and his activities were dangerous, morally tarnished, and prone to scandal, illegality, or both. As a result, until publication of The Spy, espionage remained a political nether region and an unsavory arena in which to develop heroes, fictional or otherwise. Thieves, yes; murderers, certainly; but spies, be they heroes or villains, were considered well outside the political constraints of civilized society and its literature. As the first novelist to explore the theme of espionage, Cooper had no examples and instead relied on the conventions of other genres - primarily the romantic historical novels of Sir Walter Scott - to convey the dishonesty, deception and covert manipulation central to espionage activities. Like Scott's stories, The Spy is situated in a time and place of historical challenge. But instead of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion of Scott's Waverley (1814), Cooper focuses on the American Revolution, which he too casts a kind of uprising and, again like Scott, interprets the historical record through the lives of his major characters. As McTiernan observes, "the interplay of this genre with the morality of spying and the political and social ideals Cooper advocates provides a seminal example of the seesaw relation between literary form and applied ideology: each exerts its own force, but neither escapes the pull of the other" Includes notes and suggestions for study. 463 pages.

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