Name/Title
Pilot : a tale of the seaEntry/Object ID
Library.621Tags
Library Rare books collection as of June 4 2023Description
xiii, [9]-486 p. 2 fronts., illus. 20 cm.
Pilot : a tale of the sea by James Fenimore Cooper.
"Cooper may be said in ‘The Pilot’ to have created a new literary type, the tale of adventure on the sea, in which, although he was to have followers and rivals in many modern languages, he still keeps a high place for vigor and variety. It remained for Cooper to capture for fiction the mystery and beauty, the shock and thrill, of the sea, which in his pages has much of the proud pomp of Byron's ocean. Experts say that Cooper's technical knowledge was sound; what is more important, he wrote a story about sailing vessels which convinces land-dwellers even in days of steam. Although based, with many realistic details, upon his own experience, ‘The Pilot’ has a large conventional element, chiefly in connection with its hero, John Paul Jones, who appears as always brooding upon a dark past and a darker fate. Yet he is not so morbid but that he can occasionally rouse himself to terrific activities in his raids along the English coast. Cooper credits him with a love affair, conventional in tone, and not important. Of the characters, only one possesses much interest or verisimilitude — Long Tom Coffin, of Nantucket who takes his place worthily beside Harvey Birch and Natty Bumppo. If he seems hardly so vivid a patriot as the spy it is because he is first of all a sailor, and belongs to the open sea as Leather-Stocking belongs to the forest. Long Tom is as real as an oak; he is also as romantic as storms and tides." Carl Van Doren.
ill. from drawings by F. O. C. Darley
Verso of title page: "Entered according to the Act of Congress, 1859 by W.A. Townsend and Company."
After title page, there is a letter written by Cooper to William Branford Shubrick which partially says:"But neither time nor separation has shaken our intimacy: and I know that in dedicating to you this volume, I tell you nothing new, which I add, that it is a tribute paid to an enduring friendship."
"Preface is dated August 10, 1849."Collection
LibraryLexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Primary Object Term
BookNomenclature Sub-Class
Other DocumentsNomenclature Class
Documentary ObjectsNomenclature Category
Category 08: Communication ObjectsSearch Terms
Sea stories., United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Naval operations -- Fiction.Publication Details
Author
Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851., Darley, Felix Octavius Carr, 1822-1888,Edition
Riverside edition.Publisher
Hurd and HoughtonPlace Published
* Untyped Place Published
New YorkCall No.
Rare Book PS 1412 .A1 1872