Imagination and Heart, Tales for Fifteen | Page 3

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Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart. by James Fenimore
Cooper (writing under the pseudonym of "Jane Morgan")

{This text has been transcribed and annotated from a facsimile of the
original edition (New York: C. Wiley, iv, 223 pp., 1823) by Hugh C.
MacDougall, Secretary of the James Fenimore Cooper Society
, who welcomes corrections or emendations.
Only a handful of copies of the original edition have survived. The
standard Cooper bibliography makes brief mention of an edition
published in Guernsey, Maryland (n.d.), but I have never seen any
further reference to it. Forty years ago a facsimile of the Wiley edition
was published (Delmar, NY: Scholar's Facsimiles and Reprints, 1959,
reprinted 1977), with an introduction by James Franklin Beard. At least
one microfilm version is also available, but "Tales for Fifteen" remains
one of James Fenimore Cooper's least read and least known writings.}
{In 1840, when the Boston publisher George Roberts asked Cooper for
a contribution to a new magazine, Cooper responded that he could
reprint "Tales for Fifteen" if he could find a copy--Cooper himself
didn't have one. Roberts found a copy in New York, and "Imagination"
was reprinted in his "Boston Notion" (January 30, 1841), and in his
"Roberts' Semi-Monthly Magazine" (Boston, February 1 and 15, 1841).
Shortly thereafer, he also reprinted "Heart", in the "Boston Notion"
(March 13 and 20, 1841) and in "Roberts' Semi-Monthly Magazine"
(April 1 and 15, 1841).}
{George Roberts' reprint of "Imagination" was pirated in England, and
included in "Imagination; A Tale for Young Women. With Other Tales
by American Authors" which also included "The Block- House", by
William Leggett and "The Country Cousin". (London: John
Cunningham, 72 pp., 1841 [Series: The Novel Newspaper, 143]) and
(London: N. Bruce, 72 pp., 1842 (Series: Standard Novels, 5]). It also
appeared by itself as "Imagination: A Tale for Young Women"

(London: J. Clements, 31 pp., 1841 [for the Romanticist and Novelist's
Library]). There may well exist other pirated periodical versions.}
{Introductory Note: "Tales for Fifteen" was apparently written in 1821,
when Cooper became afflicted with writer's block while composing his
first best-selling novel, "The Spy". Cooper had envisaged a series of
five stories, to be called "American Tales," and which were to deal
respectively with "Imagination", "Heart", "Matter", "Manner", and
"Matter and Manner". Only "Imagination" was completed; the
half-written "Heart" was given a sudden and half-hearted ending;
Cooper later asserted that he had allowed Charles Wiley to publish
"Tales for Fifteen to help him out of some financial difficulties. In a
letter to George Roberts in 1840, Cooper said of "Imagination" that
"this tale was