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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 written on rainy day, half asleep and half awake, but I retain rather a favorable impression of it." "Imagination", remains an amusing and cleverly- plotted story of a young girl whose imagination gets the better of her, presumably because of reading romantic novels. This, of course, was a commonplace notion in the 1820s, except that Cooper`s heroine, misled by circumstances, comes to believe that her romantic fantasies are happening. This Don Quixote-like twist is less common, though Jane Austen`s famous "Northanger Abbey" and Eaton Stannard Barrett`s little-known but very funny "The Heroine; or, Adventures of Cherubina" (1813) fall within the genre. "Heart", a slim (indeed, truncated) account of faithful love, sinks into bathos; it is, perhaps, most interesting for its opening scene of a blase New York City crowd gathering around a fallen man -- and doing nothing to help him. Southern District of New-York ss. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the thirteenth day of June, in the forty-seventh year of the Independence of the United States of America, Charles Wiley, of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words and figures following, to wit: "Tales for Fifteen; or Imagination and Heart. By Jane Morgan." In conformity with the Act of Congress of the United States entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times herein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled, "an Act, supplementary to an Act, for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times herein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." JAMES DILL, Clerk of the Southern District of New-York PREFACE WHEN the author of these little tales commenced them, it was her intention to form a short series of such stories as, it was hoped, might not be entirely without moral advantage; but unforeseen circumstances have prevented their completion, and, unwilling to delay the publication any longer, she commits them to the world in their present unfinished state, without any flattering anticipations of their reception. They are intended for the perusal of young women, at that tender age when the feelings of their nature begin to act on them most insidiously, and when their minds are least prepared by reason and experience to contend with their passions. "Heart" was intended for a much longer tale, and is unavoidably incomplete; but it is unnecessary to point out defects that even the juvenile reader will soon detect. The author only hopes that if they do no good, her tales will, at least, do no harm.
IMAGINATION. - CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. HEART. - CHAPTER I. - "Some live in airy fantasies, And in the clouds do move, And some do burn with inward flames-- But few know how to love." ANON. BALLAD CHAPTER II - CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. |
