Note 4 — THE EARLY NOVELS OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1821–1831)

How little encouragement was held out is best related by himself: “So little was expected from the publication of an original work of this description, at the time that it was written, that the first volume of The Spy was actually printed several months before the author felt a sufficient inducement to write a line of the second.... As the second volume was slowly printing, from manuscript that was barely dry when it went into the compositor’s hands, the publisher intimated that the work might grow to a length that would consume the profits. To set his mind at rest, the last chapter was actually written, printed, and paged, several weeks before the chapters which preceded it were even thought of.”