(Folcroft: PA., Folcroft Library Editions, 1973) in a limited
edition of 100 copies -- from which this text is taken.

{A few other surviving fragments from "The Towns of Manhattan"
were compiled in James F. Beard, Jr., "The First of Greater New
York: Unknown Portions of Fenimore Cooper's Last Work" (New York
Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, pp. 109-45,
April 1953).

{The text has been transcribed as written, except that because of
the limitations of the Gutenberg format, occasional words in
italics have been transcribed in ALL CAPITALS. Annotations
(identified by {curly} brackets, have been occasionally
added--identifying allusions, translating foreign terms, and
correcting a few obvious typographical errors.

{Introduction from "The Spirit of the Fair" (April 5, 1864):

{Unpublished MS. of James Fenimore Cooper.

{Our national novelist died in the autumn of 1850 [sic]; previous
to his fatal illness he was engaged upon a historical work, to be
entitled "The Men [sic] of Manhattan," only the Introduction to
which had been sent to the press: the printing office was
destroyed by fire, and with it the opening chapters of this work;
fortunately a few pages had been set up, and the impression sent
to a literary gentleman, then editor of a popular critical
journal, and were thus saved from destruction: to him we are
indebted for the posthumous articles of Cooper, wherewith, by a
coincidence as remarkable as it is auspicious, we now enrich our