When Crèvecœur offered his manuscript essays to the London publishers Davies & Davis in 1782, they were initially skeptical about the potential for the Letters to be successful. However, the work proved to be instantly popular in England for a variety of reasons. Proponents of political reform such as William Godwin and Thomas Paine approved of the radical anti-government implications of its message. Romantic writers admired, and were influenced by,[30] its evocation of the natural landscape and the individual's relationship to it. More widely, in the final years of the Revolutionary War, the public was eager for the documentary detail Letters provided about America. The popularity of the book led to a second edition being called for only a year later.[31]
In continental Europe, Letters proved equally popular. Dutch and German translations were rapidly produced, and prompted by constant demand, editions appeared in such places as Dublin, Paris and Maastricht.[31] In lieu of a second volume of letters, Crèvecœur produced an expanded French version (Lettres d'un cultivateur américain) that was published in 1784.[3] The French version, which removed the fictional persona of James, is presented as a series of documents that have been neutrally edited, providing greater documentary detail but at the expense of artistry.[32]
In the twentieth century there was a revival of interest in the text. Critic David Carlson suggests that it was "Not aesthetics, but the politics of nationalism appears to have been the primary force behind Crevecoeur's critical resurrection"—the Letters being among the first works to depict an American "melting pot".[33] Letters, particularly Letter III ("What is an American?"), is frequently anthologized, and the work is recognized as being one of the first in the canon of American literature.[34][35][36]
