| Gleanings in Europe: France Contributor(s): Cooper, James Fenimore (Author), Philbrick, Thomas (Notes by), Ayers Denne, Constance (Text by (Art, Photo Books)) |
|
 |
ISBN: 0873953681 ISBN-13: 9780873953689 Publisher: State University of New York Press OUR PRICE: $90.25 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 1983 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History - Biography & Autobiography |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 82000669 |
| Series: Writings of James Fenimore Cooper |
| Physical Information: 348 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: France (1837) was the third volume published in Cooper's Gleanings in Europe series, but first in the chronology of his European experience. Less sequential than his other travel narratives, France distills his impressions of French and European culture during his first two years abroad. Exhibiting many qualities of the familiar essay, it considers a wide range of topics of interest to Cooper, his friends, and potential readers in the United States. As a celebrity thoroughly at home in the brilliant society of Bourbon Paris, Cooper was able to provide fascinating glimpses of personalities, spectacles, institutions, and manners--from his distinctly American perspective. Indeed, as Professor Philbrick remarks, "No other of Cooper's works, perhaps, brings us closer to his speaking voice or puts us more directly in contact with the man himself, with all his idiosyncratic preoccupations, his quick resentments, his restless curiosity, his surprising humor, and his nobility of principle." The reader of this edition is brought even closer to Cooper in the draft of a hitherto unpublished letter, probably intended for this book, which illustrates Cooper's grasp of the still finer points of French customs and attitudes. |