What happened, evidently, was that Cooper's interest in The Spy had revived with such force that he had gone on to complete that book and to begin The Pioneers. Wiley's problem was then to persuade his reluctant author to complete a work in which he had lost interest but which was in press. Wiley was not successful. The three final tales, "Manner," "Matter," and "Manner and Matter," were never written. Eventually the publisher prevailed on Cooper to bring "Heart," the second of the stories, to a hurried conclusion. The author, probably happy to settle the matter, then wrote a coy Preface alluding mysteriously to "unforeseen circumstances" which had prevented the completion of the series, and gave the two stories to Wiley on the condition that their authorship be concealed. Thus The American Tales became Tales for Fifteen. A more eloquent criticism by the author could hardly be wished.
When Cooper permitted "Imagination" and "Heart" to be reprinted in 1841, he was again conferring a favor on a publisher. Towards the close of 1840 George Roberts, publisher and proprietor of the Boston Notion, subtitled without exaggeration "The Mammoth Sheet of the World," sent Cooper a circular letter in the hand of a clerk to request a short contribution suitable for his new publication, Roberts' Semi-Monthly Magazine. Normally, Cooper refused all such requests: but he was under the erroneous impression that Roberts had forwarded to him some Danish translations of his works which Longfellow had sent to America for him a few years before. Remembering these early stories, he replied to Roberts on 2 January 1841: "Some fifteen or twenty years since my publisher became embarrassed, and I wrote two short tales to aid him. He printed them, under the title of Tales for Fifteen, by Jane Morgan. One of these stories, rather a feeble one I fear, was called Heart—the other Imagination. This tale was written one rainy day, half asleep and half awake, but I retain rather a favorable impression of it. If you can find a copy of the book, you might think Imagination worth reprinting, and I suppose there can now be no objection to it. It would have the freshness of novelty, and would be American enough, Heaven knows. It would fill three or four of your columns."
Cooper owned no copy of Tales for Fifteen; but the resourceful publisher found a copy in New York, and "Imagination" filled almost the whole of the front page (approximately 60 by 34-1/2 inches) of the Boston Notion on 30 January 1841. It was reprinted in what was apparently a second edition of Roberts' Semi-Monthly Magazine for 1 and 15 February 1841 and in London in William Hazlitt's Romanticist and Novelist's Library. A subsequent request brought permission for the reprinting of "Heart," which appeared in the Boston Notion for 13 and 20 March 1841 and in Roberts' Semi-Monthly Magazine for 1 and 15 April 1841. Roberts expressed his gratitude by defending Cooper in his paper from the charge of aristocratic bias which some New York journalists had brought against Home As Found. Doubtless the publisher would have been pleased to find other American writers sufficiently democratic to provide free copy.
Tales for Fifteen owes most of its interest today to its crucial position in the Cooper canon. The literary value of "Imagination" and "Heart," as their author realized, is slight. They were essentially experiments in which he sought to deploy indigenous materials within the conventions of British domestic fiction. "Imagination," with its sprightly observation of American middle-class vulgarities, betrays a satiric awareness that Cooper did later develop; but "Heart" is a forced sentimental indulgence of a sort he never permitted by preference in later works, though he sometimes tolerated it as a concession to feminine readers. For Cooper the chief significance of these stories was that they demonstrated forcibly, if demonstration was necessary, that neither the characteristic materials nor the characteristic forms employed by the British women were congenial to his imagination. His failure was altogether fortunate; for had The American Tales been completed and published instead of The Spy, Cooper's career and the course of much of American literature might have been different.
First editions of Tales for Fifteen are the rarest of all Cooper "firsts." The four copies presently known are in the Cooper Collection of the Yale University Library, the American Antiquarian Society, the J. K. Lilly Collection of Indiana University, and the New York Society Library.
James Franklin Beard
Clark University