Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief

From the opening

{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.}

{The text is taken from the novelette's original appearance in Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXII, pp. 1-18, 89-102, 158-167, 205-213 (January-April) 1843. "Autobiography" was simultaneously issued as a separate number of Brother Jonathan magazine (March 22, 1843), under the title "Le Mouchoir: An Autobiographical Romance." Also in 1843 it was published in London by Richard Bentley as "The French Governess; or, the Embroidered Handkerchief." A German translation quickly followed, as "Die franzosischer Erzieheren, oder das gestickte Taschentuch" (Stuttgart: Lieschning, 1845, reprinted 1849). Interest in the book then lapsed.

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