Handwritten list by Cooper comprising 15 titles, followed by 14 lines of explanatory text. 4-page notesheet, 7x4½, addressed on p.4 to Monsieur Cordier, No. 20, rue Nueve, St. Augustine.

J. Fenimore Cooper's list of books necessary to an understanding of the United States, beginning with The Federalist and John Marshall's Life of Washington, with a formal note in the third person explaining to a Frenchman his list: "Mr. Fenimore Cooper prays Mr. Cordier to forgive the delay in sending this note; it has been occasioned by deaths and illness in the family of a countryman..." Cooper was in Europe from 1826 to 1833, in the service of the U.S. Government, and it was undoubtedly during this period that the list was prepared. Cooper's intense, even polemic, Americanism make his list of books of unusual interest.