Mercedes of Castile Or, The Voyage to Cathay

Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
1M words
Chapters
104

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Adventure JourneyMaritime ExplorationPatriotismAge of ExplorationExotic Culture

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Mercedes of Castile; Or, The Voyage to Cathay by James Fenimore CooperAuthor: Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 13, 2011

Editor's review

This historical novel by Cooper turns to the period around Columbus's voyage, using Mercedes of Castile as a thread character to connect the court and the sea voyage. The work continues Cooper's forte for grand scenes and historical elaboration, with considerable attention to voyage preparations, factions, and the atmosphere of the era, conveying the solemn tone and adventurous spirit characteristic of nineteenth-century American historical fiction. It is not merely a sea adventure but uses characters' fates to reflect the clash of ideas and personal choices in the Age of Discovery. As a public-domain ebook, it is an important text for understanding Cooper's works outside the Leatherstocking series, suitable for patient close reading by readers interested in maritime history and historical narrative, and as supplementary material for studying the scope of Cooper's writing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Before reading, learn the basic timeline of Columbus's voyage to help locate the historical background.
  2. Sort out the character relationships in the court line and the sea line separately, then read the two threads in comparison.
  3. When encountering long historical passages, skim first, then return to look closely at points of characters' choices.
  4. After finishing, compare with Cooper's other works to see the differences between his historical novels and adventure novels.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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FAQ

Is this book one of Cooper's Leatherstocking series? No. It belongs to Cooper's historical fiction, set around Columbus's voyage, and differs from the Leatherstocking series featuring Natty Bumppo in both characters and subject matter; it can be read as supplementary material for understanding the breadth of Cooper's writing.
Can I understand it without a background in maritime history? You can read it, but it is advisable to first learn the basic timeline of Columbus's voyage and the main factions, otherwise it is easy to lose direction in the historical elaboration. Characters' relationships and the era's background are closely intertwined, and some background will make reading smoother.
Is the main storyline a sea adventure? Not entirely. The work uses Mercedes as a thread character, with the court and sea threads running in parallel; the voyage is an important background rather than the only main line. If you expect only a tight sea adventure plot, your reading expectations may need adjustment.

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About the author

Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851 Author

James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) was an American novelist, with 47 works held in this collection. He is best known for the Leatherstocking Tales, among which The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is the most widely read; the series also includes The Pioneers, The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer, all centered on frontier and wilderness life. Cooper's fiction often draws on the North American frontier, the sea, and historical events, with intricate plots and vivid characters, and it has had a lasting influence on later American adventure and frontier novels. Some of his works are classified here under inspirational growth. Because public information is limited, biographical details are omitted, and this introduction focuses on his subjects, style, and influence.