A Trace of James Fenimore Cooper :: Biography Biographies Essays

A Trace of crowd Fenimore Cooper In 1828 throng Fenimore Cooper fatigued three months in England, chiefly to conduct business with his British publisher, Richard Bentley, and for more or less of that time he personifyd in London at 33 St. James Place. This is the way he described it in Gleanings in Europe England We in the can took a small house in St. Jamess Place, a narrow respite that communicates with the street of the same name, and which is quite near the palace and the parks. We had a flyspeck drawing-room, quite plainly furnished, a dining-room, and three bed-rooms, with the use of the offices, &c. for a greaseball a-day. The people of the house cooked for us, went to market, and attended to the rooms, while our own man and maid did the personal service. I paid a shilling extra for for each one fire, and as we kept three, it came to another guinea weekly. (20) As Donald Ringe and Kenneth Skaggs point off in their Historical Intr oduction to England, St. James 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 Street are not furthest away. Coopers neighbors on the street included William Wilberforce and Samuel Rogers, a genial and well-connected author Lord Spencer and Sir James Mackintosh lived nearby as well. The 33 St. James Place of Coopers time no longer exists, but I valued 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 centerfield or Pall amble, wide streets flanked by the gigantic architecture of royal 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 castle with