TALES FOR FIFTEEN: OR IMAGINATION AND HEART

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Published in 1823, this collection contains two stories: the novella-length ‘Imagination’ and the shorter ‘Heart’. The collection, written for a young female audience and published under the pseudonym ‘Jane Morgan’, is now extremely rare – only a few copies are known to exist. In tone, the tales are more similar to Cooper’s Jane Austen-esque Precaution (1820) than the historical romances for which he was, at the time, becoming famous. ‘Imagination’ is the humorous story of young Julia Warren’s fantastical imaginings as she comes of age and dreams of the perfect husband. ‘Heart’ is the more serious story of a young couple’s devotion to each other ‘in sickness and in health’, set against the backdrop of fashionable New York society during the 1820s.