James Fenimore Cooper - The Red Rover - 1839

James Fenimore Cooper – The Red Rover: A Tale – Liverpool: Adam Clarke Baynes, [1839].

Early British one-volume edition of Cooper’s maritime novel, published in Liverpool by Adam Clarke Baynes. Although the title page is undated, an edition bearing the same distinctive sequence of publisher and bookseller imprints is catalogued by the National Library of Scotland as 1839, providing the bibliographical basis for dating this copy. A contemporary ownership inscription dated 1848 appears on the title page and confirms that the volume was in circulation by that year.

First published in 1827, The Red Rover is one of James Fenimore Cooper’s best-known sea novels. Set in the colonial Atlantic world, it follows a mysterious pirate captain, a young sailor and a voyage shaped by concealed identities, divided loyalties, naval conflict and romance. The novel forms an important part of Cooper’s contribution to early American historical and maritime fiction.

Bound in the original publisher’s brown cloth with gilt-decorated spine. The binding shows rubbing and age-related wear, with light fraying to the spine ends, wear to the corners and a slightly cocked spine. The binding remains sound and unrestored, and the complete text block is securely attached. Internally, the pages are generally clean, with light age toning and occasional scattered foxing. Overall, an attractive early nineteenth-century copy retaining its original binding.