Jack Tier: The Florida Reef Paperback - 2003

Name: Jack Tier: The Florida Reef
Price: 24.34 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
ISBN: 9781410103468

by James Fenimore Cooper

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Summary

Jack Tier is a tale set against arms smuggling to Mexico in 1846. Under cover of respectable four shipping, Captain Stephen Spike is shipping gun powder to the Mexican government for use against the U.S. The Mexican official purchasing the powder is represented as an honorable and patriotic man. Spike carries along on the voyage a young ingenue, Rose Budd (the original title of the book), her silly aunt and an Irish servant. Young Rose is in love with the upright first mate, Harry Mulford, who does not want to smuggle powder, but who is too loyal to the ship (_not_ the captain) to quit. He ultimately rescues Rose from the sexual predation of Spike, although at first without benefit of clergy. In all of this, both Spike and the young lovers are aided at separate times by the seaman Jack Tier, who turns out to be a cross-dressing woman, who has shipped out as a man for the last twenty years, in search of the husband (Spike) who cruelly deserted her. Jack (who is not revealed as a woman until the second-to-last chapter) finally ends with Spike in her power; she is nursing him on his deathbed. Early on, Rose knew of Jack's true identity, and the two formed a loyal and lasting mutual aid society. There are no clear blacks or whites in this novel, although gray abounds. Jack's motive for hunting down Spike is left open, but hinted to be hatred and jilted anger masquerading as wifely love. Harry and Rose spend a night alone together before they are married. Although a traitor to his country, a smuggler, an outright murderer, a lecher, and a would-be bigamist, Spike is also portrayed as a first-rate sailor and captain. This is one of Cooper's best novels, although the edgy subject matter did not meet with approval in Victorian America.

From the publisher

This tale of the sea was written in 1847-48, and during the same year J. Fenimore Cooper was still occupied with the Naval Biographies, and also with The Crater. It was very seldom that he was actually engaged in writing two novels at the same time, but such was the case with The Crater and Jack Tier. The last, however, appeared as a monthly serial in "Graham's Magazine," and under the title of Rose Budd. When completed it was reprinted in a book form, and the name was changed to one much more appropriate. The date is the period of the Mexican War, when peace had only been proclaimed a few months earlier. The opening scenes occur at the wharves of New York and in Long Island Sound, where the Water-Witch had appeared nearly twenty years before. There is not the least similarity, however, between the plots or the incidents of the two books. It is indeed remarkable that after writing so large a number of tales of the sea, there should be still so much freshness and variety, in the latest of the series, both in the plot and in the details of the narrative. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was an American novelist, travel writer, and social critic, regarded as the first great American writer of fiction. He was famed for his action-packed plots and his vivid, if somewhat idealized, portrayal of American life in the forest and at sea.

Details

Title Jack Tier: The Florida Reef
Author James Fenimore Cooper
Binding Paperback
Pages 488
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Fredonia Books (NL)
Date 2003-08-29
ISBN 9781410103468 / 1410103463
Weight 1.55 lbs (0.70 kg)
Dimensions 8.02 x 5.06 x 1.2 in (20.37 x 12.85 x 3.05 cm)
Themes
- Cultural Region: South Atlantic
- Cultural Region: Southeast U.S.
- Geographic Orientation: Florida
Dewey Decimal Code FIC