Letters from an American Farmer

Letters from an American
Farmer
by Hector St. John de
Crevecoeur

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Title: Letters from an American Farmer
Author: Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
Release Date: November, 2003 [Etext #4666] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 26,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CREVECOEUR

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN FARMER
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY WARREN BARTON BLAKE

INTRODUCTION
Hazlitt wrote that of the three notable writers whom the eighteenth
century had produced, in the North American colonies, one was "the
author (whoever he was) of the American Farmer's Letters."
Crevecoeur was that unknown author; and Hazlitt said further of him
that he rendered, in his own vividly characteristic manner, "not only the
objects, but the feelings, of a new country." Great is the essayist's relish
for passages descriptive of "a battle between two snakes," of "the
dazzling, almost invisible flutter of the humming- bird's wing," of the
manners of "the Nantucket people, their frank simplicity, and festive
rejoicings after the perils and hardships of the whale-fishing." "The
power to sympathise with nature, without thinking of ourselves or
others, if it is not a definition of genius, comes very near to it," writes
Hazlitt of our author. And his references to Crevecoeur are closed with
the remark: "We have said enough of this ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE;
for it is the rule of criticism to praise none but the over-praised, and to
offer fresh incense to the idol of the day."
Others, at least, have followed that "rule of criticism," and the
American Farmer has long enjoyed undisturbed seclusion. Only once
since the eighteenth century has there been a new edition of his Letters,
that were first published at London in 1782, and reissued, with a few
corrections, in the next year. The original American edition of this
book about America was that published at Philadelphia in 1793, and
there was no reprint till 1904, [Footnote: References may be found to
American editions of 1794 and 1798, but no copies of such editions are
preserved in any library to which the editor has had access.] when
careless editing did all it could to destroy the value of the work, the
name of whose very author was misstated. Yet the facts which we have
concerning him are few enough to merit truthful presentation.

I
Except by naturalisation, the author of Letters from an American
Farmer was not an American; and he was no ordinary farmer. Yet why
quarrel with him for the naming of his book, or for his signing it "J.
Hector Saint-John," when the "Hector" of his title-pages and American
biographers was only a prenom de faintaisie? We owe some
concessions to the author of so charming a book, to the eighteenth-