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.}