The neutral ground : the André affair and the background of Cooper's The spy

Bibliographic Information

The neutral ground : the André affair and the background of Cooper's The spy

Bruce A. Rosenberg

(Contributions to the study of popular culture, no. 42)

Greenwood Press, c1994

Available at  / 16 libraries

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

John Andre was captured in September 1780, outside British lines, and was hanged as a spy. Forty years later, he was still so highly regarded that, in 1821, his body was exhumed and reburied in the Heroes' Corner of Westminster Abbey. This book argues that James Fenimore Cooper's second novel, The Spy, is an examination of the nature and character of clandestinity in which the author investigates the morality of deceit and disguised intentions in normal life as well as in wartime by using the Andre affair as background. A century later, The Spy was undiscovered by British spy novelists. The publication date of The Spy (1821--the year of Andre's reinterment) further suggests that this affair is really the impetus for Cooper's examination of the nature of spying. Cooper is usually acknowledged as the originator of the Western; one of the assertions of this book is that he is also the first spy novelist.

Table of Contents

Major André Hanging Is for Spies The Gentleman's Code The Blackest Treason A Gentleman's Education The Arnold Enlistment This Is a Spy! Posthumous Encomia James Fenimore Cooper The André Affair and The Spy André and Cooper Cooper and the Spy Novel The McDonald Papers The Neutral Ground The Spy An American Novel Dramatis Personae The Neutral Ground References Index

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