The Lumley Autograph — Inside the Classic

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In Category - Historical Psychological Social Fiction

Authors: Cooper, Susan Fenimore, 1813-1894 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2000 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Satire; Autographs -- Collectors and collecting -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 14,382

Reading time 63 min

Text sections 2

The Lumley Autograph — Inside the Classic can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 14,382 words, 1 hr 3 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 23.7 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Satire,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #2164

A satirical tale of autograph-collecting mania in mid-19th century society, told through the eyes of a narrator who encounters collectors whose absurd requests—from Black Hawk to a 'rowdy letter'—reveal the commodification of fame and the ironic fate of a poet whose desperate plea becomes a rich man's trophy.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg2164

Read the Text

Gilbert was dying in a hospital at Paris--it happened that a worthy physician, well known in the town of Southampton for his benevolence and eccentricity, was on a professional visit to the child of a poor journeyman trunk-maker, in the same place. A supply of old paper had just been brought in for the purpose of lining trunks, according to the practice of the day. A workman was busy sorting these, rejecting some as refuse, and preserving others, when the doctor stopped to answer an inquiry about the sick child.

{Chatterton = Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), British poet, who created an imaginary Thomas Rowley, a supposed medieval monk, to whom he ascribed some of his poems. Chatterton committed suicide at the age of 18 when a poem of his, allegedly by Rowley, was rejected; he was buried in a pauper's grave. Susan Fenimore Cooper no doubt has this in mind in naming a character in this story Theodosia Rowley.

{Gilbert = Nicolas Gilbert (1751-1780), French poet, who died in Paris at the age of 29. The French writer Count Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), in his book of essays "Stello" (1832), popularized a legend that Gilbert had died insane and in abject poverty at the charity hospital of the Hotel Dieu in Paris, and compared his miserable end with that of Chatteron; it seems likely that Vigny, whose book appeared while Susan Fenimore Cooper was studying in Paris, was her source for this reference to Gilbert. In fact, Gilbert was not impoverished, and died of injuries after falling from his horse}

"Better, Hopkins--doing well. But what have you here? I never see old papers but I have an inclination to look them over. If a man has leisure, he may often pick up something amusing among such rubbish. Don't you ever read the papers that pass through your hands?"

"No, sir--I 'as no time for that, sir. And then I was never taught to read writing, and these 'ere papers is all written ones. We puts them that's written for one trunk, and them that's printed for another, as you see, sir; one must have a heye to the looks of the work."

"Why yes--you seem to manage the job very well; and I have a trunk, by the bye, that wants patching up before my boy carries it off with him; I'll send it round to you; Hopkins. But stay--what's this?" and the doctor took up a soiled, yellow sheet of paper, from the heap rejected by the workman; it contained a scrawl which proved to be the identical letter of the poor poet, the Lumley autograph, though in what manner it became mingled with that heap of rubbish has never been satisfactorily ascertained.

"Here's a poor fellow who had a hard fate, Hopkins," said the benevolent man, thoughtfully. "It is as good as a sermon on charity to read that letter."

The trunk-maker begged to hear it.

"Well, poor journeyman as I be, I was never yet in so bad a way as that, sir."

"And never will be, I hope; but this was a poet, Hopkins--and that's but an indifferent trade to live by. I'll tell you what, my good friend," said the doctor, suddenly, "that letter is worth keeping, and you may paste it in the trunk I'll send round this afternoon--put it in the lid, where it can be read."

Continue Reading →

The story opens with a pointed premise: an American author receives a request from a German correspondent for 'a few Autographs'—over a hundred names. This sets the stage for a satire that skewers the autograph-collecting craze of the 1850s. The narrator, Mr. Howard, soon finds himself cornered by Miss Rowley, who produces a list 'as long, and as well covered with names as any minority petition to Congress.' Her requests escalate from Black Hawk to a 'rowdy letter,' revealing the absurd lengths collectors will go to obtain signatures, regardless of the subject's literacy or character.

A Collector's Logic

Miss Rowley's dialogue exposes the peculiar value system of autograph hunters. She laments that Lady Holberton refused to trade a Madame Laffarge autograph, despite offering 'Grizzel Baillie, two Cardinals, William Pitt, and Grace Darling.' The narrator's polite suggestion that Lady Holberton's stock might have been low is met with a curled lip. The exchange highlights how collectors rank signatures not by literary merit but by scarcity: Schinderhannes, a German bandit, is deemed 'quite unique' while philanthropists like Howard and Penn are dismissed as 'commonplace.' The satire deepens when Miss Rowley admits she wrote to Madame Laffarge—a convicted poisoner—showing that notoriety trumps morality in this world.

The Narrator's Predicament

Mr. Howard navigates these requests with a mixture of compliance and bemusement. He offers to procure a letter from a Cherokee editor, only to have Miss Rowley's gratitude evaporate when she learns he has already given one to Mr. T——. Her next request—for a 'rowdy letter'—forces him to clarify that his correspondents are 'generally men of respectability.' The narrator's position as a middleman between the literary world and the collecting elite creates a running tension: he must satisfy absurd demands without compromising his own standards. His earlier confession that he has 'lived too much among collectors of late to be easily dismayed' suggests a weariness that colors every interaction.

The Autograph as Commodity

The story's central irony emerges from the gap between the writer's labor and the collector's desire. Autographs are treated as interchangeable goods: Miss Rowley offers 'Howard, the philanthropist, Talma, William Penn, and Fenelon' for a single Schinderhannes. The narrator's own willingness to part with a Cherokee editor's letter underscores how personal correspondence becomes currency. The catalog subjects—'Satire; Autographs -- Collectors and collecting'—are borne out in these transactions. Yet the excerpts hint at a darker undercurrent: the poet Lumley, whose autograph gives the story its title, has died in want while his desperate appeal becomes a prized possession. The satire thus carries a moral weight that the collectors themselves cannot see.

Voice and Structure in the Excerpts

Susan Fenimore Cooper employs a first-person narrator whose tone is urbane but increasingly strained. The prose moves briskly through dialogue, with Miss Rowley's exclamations—'How charming!'—contrasting sharply with the narrator's measured responses. The structure relies on a series of escalating requests, each more outlandish than the last, building a cumulative comic effect. The excerpts also reveal a careful use of historical references: Black Hawk, Madame Laffarge, Schinderhannes—each name carries a specific cultural weight that contemporary readers would recognize. The transcriber's notes, while not part of the original text, confirm that Cooper wove real figures into her fiction, grounding the satire in recognizable manias of her era.

Readers approaching The Lumley Autograph should attend to the way Cooper balances broad comedy with pointed social critique. The story's brevity—under 15,000 words—belies its layered treatment of fame, desperation, and the strange economics of collecting. Pay particular attention to how the narrator's position shifts from amused participant to reluctant accomplice, and how the title character, though absent from the excerpts, casts a long shadow over the proceedings. The satire works best when read as a period piece that still resonates in an age of celebrity memorabilia and digital hoarding.

Reading about those nineteenth-century autograph hunters made me think of Twain’s odd little tale, The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut — Inside the Classic. Both share that strange, uncomfortable feeling of watching someone become a relic of their own worst impulse. I remember closing one and then the other, the same quiet, wry ache settling in, like recognizing an old acquaintance in a passing carriage.