The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief, by
James Fenimore Cooper

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Title: Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief

Author: James Fenimore Cooper

Posting Date: March 1, 2009 [EBook #2329]
Release Date: September, 2000

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTOBIOGRAPHY--POCKET HANDKERCHIEF ***

Produced by Hugh C. MacDougal. HTML version by Al Haines.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF

by

James Fenimore Cooper

{This text has been transcribed, corrected, and annotated from its
original periodical appearance in Graham's Magazine (Jan.-Apr. 1843),
by Hugh C. MacDougall, Secretary of the James Fenimore Cooper Society
(jfcooper@wpe.com), who welcomes corrections or emendations.}

{Introductory Note: "Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief" was James
Fenimore Cooper's first serious attempt at magazine writing, and
Graham's Magazine would publish other contributions from him over the
next few years, notably a series of biographic sketches of American
naval officers, and the novel "Jack Tier; or The Florida Reef"
(1846-1848). Though hardly one of Cooper's greatest works,
"Autobiography" remains significant because of: (1) its unusual
narrator--an embroidered pocket-handkerchief--that is surely the first
of its kind; (2) its critique of economic exploitation in France and of
the crass commercial climate of ante-bellum America; and, (3) its
constant exploration of American social, moral, and cultural issues.
This said, it must be admitted that the telling of Adrienne's sad
plight in Paris becomes a bit overwrought; and that the inept wooing of
Mary Monson by the social cad Tom Thurston is so drawn out and
sarcastic as to suggest snobbery on Cooper's part as well as on that of
his elite hanky. Finally, the heroine-handkerchief's protracted failure
to recognize her maker, when she has proved so sensitive to her
surroundings in every other fashion, is simply unbelievable. Still,
there is enough to reward today's reader, if only in the story's unique
"point of view" and in the recognizable foibles of Henry Halfacre and
his social-climbing daughter.}