The considerably longer title under which it was originally published is Letters from an American Farmer; Describing Certain Provincial Situations, Manners, and Customs not Generally Known; and Conveying Some Idea of the Late and Present Interior Circumstances of the British Colonies in North America.

Crèvecœur wrote Letters during a period of seven years prior to the American Revolutionary War, while farming in the fertile Greycourt, blackdirt region of Chester, NY, a small town in Orange County, New York.

It is told from the viewpoint of a fictional narrator in correspondence with an English gentleman, and each letter concerns a different aspect of life or location in the British colonies of America.

After working as a surveyor and trader during the subsequent four years, in which he traveled extensively, he purchased farmland in Orange County, New York and married Mehitabel Tippett.

[10] The work consists of twelve letters that address a wide range of issues concerning life in the British colonies in America in the years prior to the American Revolutionary War.

The exception to this is Letter XI, which is written by a Russian gentleman ("Mr. Iw——n Al——z") describing his visit to the botanist John Bartram,[12] but who is presumed to also be writing to Mr F.

[14] Whereas early readings of the text tended to consider it "as a straightforward natural and social history of young America",[17] critics now see it as combining elements of fiction and non-fiction in what Thomas Philbrick has termed a "complex artistry".

[24] Among the most significant and recurring themes of Letters is that of the individual and society's relationship with their environment; the work has been read as an "impassioned, unqualified defense of American agrarianism".

[28] Anna Carew-Miller suggests that what the text articulates on this subject is "the [cultural] myth that a man's relationship with the land confirms his masculinity and dignity as a citizen.

[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.