James Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) 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, often regarded as his masterpiece.

Primary works

Fiction: Precaution,1820; The Spy,1821; The Pioneers, 1823; The Pilot, 1824; Lionel Lincoln,1824; The Last of the Mohicans, 1826; The Red Rover,1827; The Prairie, 1827; The Red Rover,1827; The Red Rover, 1828; The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish,1829; The Water Witch,1830; The Bravo,1831; The Heidenmauer,1832; The Headsman,1833; The Monikins,1835; Homeward Bound,1838; Home as Found,1838; Mercedes of Castile,1840; The Pathfinder, 1840; The Deerslayer, 1841; The Two Admirals,1842; The Wing-and-Wing,1842; Le Mouchoir; an Autobiographical Romance,1843; Ned Myers, 1843; Wyandotte, 1843; Afloat and Ashore,1844; Miles Wallingford: A Sequel to Afloat and Ashore,1844; Satanstoe,1845; The Chain Bearer,1845; The Redskins,1846; The Crater,1847; Jack Tier,1848; Oak Openings, 1849; The Sea Lions,1849;The Ways of the Hour,1850.

The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground. Elliott, James P. (ed. and introd.); Pickering, James H.; Schachterle, Lance, and others. NY: AM, 2002.

Non-Fiction: Notions of the Americans: Picked Up by a Travelling Bachelor, 1828; Sketches of Switzerland,1836; Gleanings in Europe,1837; The American Democrat,1838; The History of the Navy of the United States of America,1839.

Writings

He anonymously published his first book, Precaution (1820). He soon issued several others. In 1823, he published the pioneers; this was the first of the Leatherstocking series, featuring Natty Bumppo, the resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and especially their chief Chingachgook. Cooper's most famous novel, Last of the Mohicans (1826), became one of the most widely read American novels of the nineteenth century. The book was written in New York City, where Cooper and his family lived from 1822 to 1826.

In 1826 Cooper moved his family to Europe, where he sought to gain more income from his books as well as provide better education for his children. While overseas he continued to write. His books published in Paris include the red rover, and the water witch—two of his many sea stories.

In 1832 he entered the lists as a party writer; in a series of letters to the national, a Parisian journal, he defended the United States against a string of charges brought against them by the Revue Britannique. For the rest of his life he continued skirmishing in print, sometimes for the national interest, sometimes for that of the individual, and not infrequently for both at once.

 Otsego Hall, Cooper's ancestral homethis opportunity to make a political confession of faith reflected the political turn he already had taken in his fiction, having attacked European anti-republicanism in The Bravo (1831). Cooper continued this political course in The Heidenmauer (1832) and the headsman: or the Abbaye of Vigneron (1833). The bravo depicted Venice as a place where a ruthless oligarchy lurks behind the mask of the "serene republic." all were widely read on both sides of the Atlantic, though the bravo was a critical failure in the United States.

In 1833 Cooper returned to America and immediately published a letter to my countrymen, in which he gave his own version of the controversy in which he had been engaged and sharply censured his compatriots for their share in it. This attack he followed up with novels and several sets of notes on his travels and experiences in Europe. His homeward bound and home as found are notable for containing a highly idealized portrait of himself.

In June 1834, he resolved to reopen his ancestral mansion, Otsego Hall, at Cooperstown, then long closed and falling into decay; he had been absent from the mansion nearly 16 years. Repairs were at once begun, and the house was speedily put in order. at first, he wintered in New York city and summered in Cooperstown, but eventually he made Otsego Hall his permanent abode.