The Monikins

About this book

Described in the introduction as a manuscript sent to the author in Geneva, Switzerland, by a Viscount Householder in gratitude for the author's having saved the Viscount's beautiful wife from accidental death, this novel uses the framework of a south-polar voyage to two unknown countries, Leaphigh [markedly similar in its institutions to England] and Leaplow [singularly like the United States in its principles and practices], to satirize the social, political, and judicial systems of the two Western countries. The "voyage" appears to have been imaginary, the product of the manuscript writer's delirium during an illness in Paris, but the points made are indelible ones. The first-person narrative device [in the voice of John Goldencalf, Viscount of Householder] adds verisimilitude to the account.

Themes & subjects

About the author

James Fenimore Cooper

15 September 1789 – 14 September 1851

James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel [*The Last of the Mohicans*][1], often regarded as his masterpiece. ([Source][2]) [1]: http://openlibrary.org/works/OL77958W/The_last_of_the_Mohicans [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fenimore_Cooper