# Is "The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground" by James Fenimore Cooper a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground by James Fenimore Cooper (Wiley & Halsted, 1821) is identified by: First edition, two volumes, published in New York by Wiley & Halsted on December 22, 1821; the title page credits the book only to "the author of Precaution," not to Cooper by name, since Cooper had not yet begun publishing under his own name. The New York edition (Wiley & Halsted, December 22, 1821) is the true first, preceding the first English edition (G.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition, two volumes, published in New York by Wiley & Halsted on December 22, 1821; the title page credits the book only to "the author of Precaution," not to Cooper by name, since Cooper had not yet begun publishing under his own name
- Volume one collates to xii + 251 pages and volume two to 286 pages
- The defining point of issue, recorded in Spiller & Blackburn's descriptive bibliography of Cooper, is on volume one's title page: in the epigraph "Breathes there a man with soul so dead," the second "d" in "dead" is out of alignment
- Because the first printing sold out quickly, Wiley reprinted from the same plates for "second" and "third" editions in 1822 (each with a new preface) and a "fourth edition" in 1824
- First-issue sets are distinguished from these later Wiley printings by the December 1821 title-page date and the misaligned "dead"; most surviving copies have been rebound in period leather rather than retaining the original boards and paper spine labels
- Publisher imprint reads Wiley & Halsted
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | James Fenimore Cooper |
| Publisher | Wiley & Halsted |
| Year | 1821 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition, two volumes, published in New York by Wiley & Halsted on December 22, 1821; the title page credits the book only to "the… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
First edition, two volumes, published in New York by Wiley & Halsted on December 22, 1821; the title page credits the book only to "the author of Precaution," not to Cooper by name, since Cooper had not yet begun publishing under his own name. Volume one collates to xii + 251 pages and volume two to 286 pages. The defining point of issue, recorded in Spiller & Blackburn's descriptive bibliography of Cooper, is on volume one's title page: in the epigraph "Breathes there a man with soul so dead," the second "d" in "dead" is out of alignment. Because the first printing sold out quickly, Wiley reprinted from the same plates for "second" and "third" editions in 1822 (each with a new preface) and a "fourth edition" in 1824. First-issue sets are distinguished from these later Wiley printings by the December 1821 title-page date and the misaligned "dead"; most surviving copies have been rebound in period leather rather than retaining the original boards and paper spine labels.

## Is this the true first?
The New York edition (Wiley & Halsted, December 22, 1821) is the true first, preceding the first English edition (G. and W. B. Whittaker, London, February 28, 1822) by more than two months; no earlier printing in any other country is recorded.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Wiley's own 1822 and 1824 reprints used the same plates but added new prefaces, so they can be mistaken for the true first; Putnam's 1849 edition carries Cooper's own textual revisions, and later Townsend and other illustrated "household" editions from the 1850s onward add engravings and use imprints unrelated to Wiley & Halsted. None reproduce the original boards-and-label binding.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground* by James Fenimore Cooper a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-spy-a-tale-of-the-neutral-ground
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.