Spy : A Tale of the Neutral Ground

Cooper, James Fenimore; Franklin, Wayne (INT); Franklin, Wayne

ISBN 10: 0140436286 / ISBN 13: 9780140436280

Published by Penguin Publishing Group, 1997

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 491382-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Spy : A Tale of the Neutral Ground
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140436286
• ISBN 13: 9780140436280
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

A historical adventure reminiscent of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley romances, Cooper’s novel centers on Harvey Birch, a common man wrongly suspected of being a spy for the British.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
 

About the Author

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) grew up at Otsego Hall, his father’s manorial estate near Lake Otsego in upstate New York. Educated at Yale, he spent five years at sea, as a foremast hand and then as a midshipman in the navy. At thirty he was suddenly plunged into a literary career when his wife challenged his claim that he could write a better book that the English novel he was reading to her. The result was Precaution (1820), a novel of manners. His second book, The Spy (1821), was an immediate success, and with The Pioneers (1823) he began his series of Leatherstocking Tales. By 1826 when The Last of the Mohicans appeared, his standing as a major novelist was clearly established. From 1826 to 1833 Cooper and his family lived and traveled in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. Two of his most successful works, The Prairie and The Red Rover, were published in 1827. He returned to Otsego Hall in 1834, and after a series of relatively unsuccessful books of essays, travel sketches, and history, he returned to fiction – and to Leatherstocking – with The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). In his last decade he faced declining popularity brought on in part by his waspish attacks on critics and political opponents. Just before his death in 1851 an edition of his works led to a reappraisal of his fiction and somewhat restored his reputation as the first of American writers.