Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart.
by James Fenimore Cooper (writing under the
pseudonym of "Jane Morgan")

{This text has been transcribed and annotated from
a facsimile of the original edition (New York: C.
Wiley, iv, 223 pp., 1823) by Hugh C. MacDougall,
Secretary of the James Fenimore Cooper Society
emendations. Only a handful of copies of the
original edition have survived. The standard Cooper
bibliography makes brief mention of an edition
published in Guernsey, Maryland (n.d.), but I have
never seen any further reference to it. Forty years
ago a facsimile of the Wiley edition was published
(Delmar, NY: Scholar's Facsimiles and Reprints,
1959, reprinted 1977), with an introduction by
James Franklin Beard. At least one microfilm
version is also available, but "Tales for Fifteen"
remains one of James Fenimore Cooper's least read
and least known writings.}

{In 1840, when the Boston publisher George
Roberts asked Cooper for a contribution to a new
magazine, Cooper responded that he could reprint
"Tales for Fifteen" if he could find a copy--Cooper
himself didn't have one. Roberts found a copy in
New York, and "Imagination" was reprinted in his
"Boston Notion" (January 30, 1841), and in his
"Roberts' Semi-Monthly Magazine" (Boston,
February 1 and 15, 1841). Shortly thereafer, he also
reprinted "Heart", in the "Boston Notion" (March 13
and 20, 1841) and in "Roberts' Semi-Monthly
Magazine" (April 1 and 15, 1841).}

{George Roberts' reprint of "Imagination" was
pirated in England, and included in "Imagination; A
Tale for Young Women. With Other Tales by
American Authors" which also included "The Block-
House", by William Leggett and "The Country
Cousin". (London: John Cunningham,  72 pp., 1841
[Series: The Novel Newspaper, 143]) and (London:
N. Bruce, 72 pp., 1842 (Series: Standard Novels,
5]). It also appeared by itself as "Imagination: A
Tale for Young Women" (London: J. Clements, 31
pp., 1841 [for the Romanticist and Novelist's
Library]). There may well exist other pirated
periodical versions.}

{Introductory Note: "Tales for Fifteen" was
apparently written in 1821, when Cooper became
afflicted with writer's block while composing his
first best-selling novel, "The Spy". Cooper had
envisaged a series of five stories, to be called
"American Tales," and which were to deal
respectively with "Imagination", "Heart", "Matter",
"Manner", and "Matter and Manner". Only
"Imagination" was completed; the half-written
"Heart" was given a sudden and half-hearted
ending; Cooper later asserted that he had allowed
Charles Wiley to publish "Tales for Fifteen to help
him out of some financial difficulties. In a letter to
George Roberts in 1840, Cooper said of
"Imagination" that "this tale was written on rainy
day, half asleep and half awake, but I retain rather
a favorable impression of it."}

{"Imagination", remains an amusing and cleverly-
plotted story of a young girl whose imagination
gets the better of her, presumably because of
reading romantic novels. This, of course, was a
commonplace notion in the 1820s, except that
Cooper's heroine, misled by circumstances, comes
to believe that her romantic fantasies are
happening. This Don Quixote-like twist is less
common, though Jane Austen's famous "Northanger
Abbey" and Eaton Stannard Barrett's little-known
but very funny "The Heroine; or, Adventures of
Cherubina" (1813) fall within the genre. "Heart", a
slim (indeed, truncated) account of faithful love,
sinks into bathos; it is, perhaps, most interesting
for its opening scene of a blase New York City
crowd gathering around a fallen man -- and doing
nothing to help him.}

{Spelling and punctuation are as in the 1823
original, including inconsistent spellings (e.g.,
gaiety and gayety, Henly and Henley) except that,
because of the typographical limitations of the
Gutenberg system, the few words italicized in the
original are represented by ALL CAPITALS.
Annotations by the transcriber are enclosed in
{curly brackets}. A very few obvious typographical
errors have been marked by {sic}.}

TALES FOR FIFTEEN:
OR
IMAGINATION AND HEART.

BY JANE MORGAN.
================

NEW-YORK
C. WILEY, 3 WALL STREET
J. Seymour, printer
1823

Southern District of New-York ss.
BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the thirteenth day of
June, in the forty-seventh year of the Independence
of the United States of America, Charles Wiley, of
the said District, hath deposited in this office the
title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as
proprietor, in the words and figures following, to
wit:

"Tales for Fifteen; or Imagination and Heart.
By Jane Morgan."

In conformity with the Act of Congress of the
United States entitled, "An Act for the
encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies
of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and
proprietors of such copies, during the times herein
mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled, "an Act,
supplementary to an Act, for the encouragement of
Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts,
and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such
copies, during the times herein mentioned, and
extending the benefits thereof to the arts of
designing, engraving, and etching historical and
other prints."
JAMES DILL,
Clerk of the Southern District of New-York

PREFACE

WHEN the author of these little tales commenced
them, it was her intention to form a short series of
such stories as, it was hoped, might not be entirely
without moral advantage; but unforeseen
circumstances have prevented their completion,
and, unwilling to delay the publication any longer,
she commits them to the world in their present
unfinished state, without any flattering
anticipations of their reception. They are intended
for the perusal of young women, at that tender age
when the feelings of their nature begin to act on
them most insidiously, and when their minds are
with their passions.

"Heart" was intended for a much longer tale, and is
unavoidably incomplete; but it is unnecessary to
point out defects that even the juvenile reader will
soon detect. The author only hopes that if they do
no good, her tales will, at least, do no harm.

IMAGINATION.
---oOo---

I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note,
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,
On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

{Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Act
III, Scene 1, lines 137-141}

"DO--write to me often, my dear Anna!" said the
weeping Julia Warren, on parting, for the first time
since their acquaintance, with the young lady whom
she had honoured with the highest place in her
affections. "Think how dreadfully solitary and
miserable I shall be here, without a single
companion, or a soul to converse with, now you are
to be removed two hundred miles into the
wilderness."

"Oh! trust me, my love, I shall not forget you now
or ever," replied her friend, embracing the other
slightly, and, perhaps, rather hastily for so tender
an adieu; at the same time glancing her eye on the
figure of a youth, who stood in silent contemplation
of the scene. "And doubt not but I shall soon tire
you with my correspondence, especially as I more
than suspect it will be subjected to the criticisms of
Mr. Charles Weston." As she concluded, the young
lady curtisied to the youth in a manner that
contradicted, by its flattery, the forced irony of her
remark.

"Never, my dear girl!" exclaimed Miss Warren with
extreme fervour. "The confidence of our friendship
is sacred with me, and nothing, no, nothing, could
ever tempt me to violate such a trust. Charles is
very kind and very indulgent to all my whims, but
he never could obtain such an influence over me as
to become the depositary of my secrets. Nothing