A Trace of James Fenimore Cooper :: Biography Biographies Essays

A Trace of pack Fenimore Cooper In 1828 James Fenimore Cooper spent three months in England, chiefly to conduct calling with his British publisher, Richard Bentley, and for most of that time he lived in London at 33 St. James appear. This is the way he described it in Gleanings in Europe England We finally took a small ho wasting disease in St. Jamess Place, a narrow inlet that communicates with the street of the same name, and which is quite near the palace and the parks. We had a tiny drawing-room, quite plainly furnished, a dining-room, and three bed-rooms, with the use of the offices, &c. for a guinea a-day. The people of the house cooked for us, went to market, and attended to the rooms, while our cause man and maid did the personal service. I paid a lead on extra for each fire, and as we kept three, it came to another guinea weekly. (20) As Donald Ringe and Kenneth Skaggs point out in their Historical Introduction to England, St. Jame s Place represented a most desirable location (xvii). It is close to the centers of political power in England--St. James Palace, Buckingham Palace, and 10 Downing highway are not far away. Coopers neighbors on the street included William Wilberforce and Samuel Rogers, a tolerant and well-connected writer Lord Spencer and Sir James Mackintosh lived nearby as well. The 33 St. James Place of Coopers time no longer exists, only I wanted to visit the site anyway, to try to get a feel for what it meant for him to live there. If you walk from Trafalger Square to St. James Street, you can go along The Mall or Pall Mall, wide streets flanked by the massive architecture of Imperial Britain. St. James Place opens across St. James Street from the Pall Mall Christies, the famous auction house, is on the corner opposite. At the south end of St. James Street stands St. James Palace, an imposing brick citadel with