The Last of the Mohicans

- By James Fenimore Cooper
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American writer (1789–1851) James Fenimore CooperPhotograph by Mathew Brady, 1850Born(1789-09-15)September 15, 1789Burlington, New Jersey, U.S.DiedSeptember 14, 1851(1851-09-14) (aged 61)Cooperstown, New York, U.S.OccupationAuthorGenreHistorical fictionLiterary movementRomanticismNotable worksThe Last of the Mohicans Military careerAllegiance United StatesBranchUnited States NavyYears of service1808–1810RankMidshipman James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. He lived much of his boyhood and his last fifteen years in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it.[1] He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society.[2] After a stint on a commercial voyage, Cooper served in the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, where he learned the technology of managing sailing vessels which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. The novel that launched his career was The Spy, a tale about espionage set during the American Revolutionary War and published in 1821.[3] He also created American sea stories. His best-known works are five historical novels of the frontier period, written between 1823 and 1841, known as the Leatherstocking Tales, which introduced the iconic American frontier scout, Natty Bumppo. Cooper's works on the U.S. Navy have been well received among naval historians, but they were sometimes criticized by his contemporaries. Among his more famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.[4] Throughout his career, he published numerous social, political, and historical works of fiction and non-fiction with the objective of countering European prejudices and nurturing an original American art and culture. Early life and education[edit] Otsego Hall, Cooper's home in Cooperstown, New York Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1789 to William Cooper and Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper, the eleventh of 12 children, half of whom died during infancy or childhood. Shortly after James' first birthday, his family moved to Cooperstown, New York, a community founded by his father on a large piece of land which he had bought for development. Later, his father was elected to the United States Congress as a representative from Otsego County. Their town was in a central area of New York along the headwaters of the Susquehanna River that had previously been patented to Colonel George Croghan by the Province of New York in 1769. Croghan mortgaged the land before the Revolution and after the war part of the tract was sold at public auction to William Cooper and his business partner Andrew Craig.[5] By 1788, William Cooper had selected and surveyed the site where Cooperstown would be established. He erected a home on the shore of Otsego Lake and moved his family there in the autumn of 1790. Several years later he began construction of the mansion that became known as Otsego Hall, completed in 1799 when James was ten.[6] Cooper was enrolled at Yale University at age 13, but he incited a dangerous prank which involved blowing up another student's door—after having already locked a donkey in a recitation room.[7] He was expelled in his third year without completing his degree, so he obtained work in 1806 as a sailor and joined the crew of a merchant vessel at age 17.[2][8] By 1811, he obtained the rank of midshipman in the fledgling United States Navy, conferred upon him by an officer's warrant signed by Thomas Jefferson.[4][9] William Cooper had died more than a year before, in 1809, when James was 20. All five of his sons inherited a supposed-large fortune in money, securities, and land titles, which soon proved to be a wealth of endless litigation. James married Susan Augusta de Lancey at Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York on January 1, 1811, at age 21.[10] She was from a wealthy family who remained loyal to Great Britain during the Revolution. The Coopers had seven children, five of whom lived to adulthood. Their daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper was a writer on nature, female suffrage, and other topics. Her father edited her works and secured publishers for them.[11] One son, Paul Fenimore Cooper, became a lawyer and perpetuated the author's lineage to the present. Service in the Navy[edit] The young Cooper, in Midshipman's naval uniform In 1806, at the age of 17, Cooper joined the crew of the merchant ship Sterling as a common sailor. At the time, the Sterling was commanded by young John Johnston from Maine. Cooper served as a common seaman before the mast. His first voyage took some 40 stormy days at sea and brought him to an English market in Cowes where they sought information on where best to unload their cargo of flour. There, Cooper saw his first glimpses of England. Britain was in the midst of war with Napoleon's France at the time, so their ship was immediately approached by a British man-of-war and was boarded by some of its crew. They seized one of the Sterling's best crewmen and impressed him into the British Royal Navy.[12][13][a] Cooper thus first encountered the power of his country's former colonial master, which led to a lifelong commitment to helping create an American art independent culturally as well as politically from the former mother country.[attribution needed] Their next voyage took them to the Mediterranean along the coast of Spain, including Águilas and Cabo de Gata, where they picked up cargo to be taken to London and unloaded. Their stay in Spain lasted several weeks and impressed the young sailor, the accounts of which Cooper later referred to in his Mercedes of Castile, a novel about Columbus.[15] After serving aboard the Sterling for 11 months, he joined the United States Navy on January 1, 1808, when he received his commission as a midshipman. Cooper had conducted himself well as a sailor, and his father, a former U.S. Congressman, easily secured a commission for him through his long-standing connections with politicians and naval officials.[16][17] The warrant for Cooper's commission as midshipman was signed by President Jefferson and mailed by Naval Secretary Robert Smith, reaching Cooper on February 19. On February 24, he received orders to report to the naval commander at New York City.[b] Joining the United States Navy fulfilled an aspiration he had had since his youth.[18] Cooper's first naval assignment came on March 21, 1808, aboard the USS Vesuvius, an 82-foot bomb ketch that carried twelve guns and a thirteen-inch mortar.[19] For his next assignment, he served under Lieutenant Melancthon Taylor Woolsey near Oswego on Lake Ontario, overseeing the building of the brig USS Oneida for service on the lake. The vessel was intended for use in a war with Great Britain which had yet to begin.[20] The vessel was completed, armed with sixteen guns, and launched in Lake Ontario in the spring of 1809. It was in this service that Cooper learned shipbuilding, shipyard duties and frontier life. During his leisure time, Cooper would venture through the forests of New York state and explore the shores of Lake Ontario. He occasionally ventured into the Thousand Islands. His experiences in the Oswego area later inspired some of his work, including his novel The Pathfinder.[21][c] After completion of the Oneida in 1809, Cooper accompanied Woolsey to Niagara Falls, who then was ordered to Lake Champlain to serve aboard a gunboat until the winter months when the lake froze over. Cooper himself returned from Oswego to Cooperstown and then New York City. On November 13 of the same year, he was assigned to the USS Wasp under the command of Captain James Lawrence, who was from Burlington and became a personal friend of Cooper's. Aboard this ship, he met his lifelong friend William Branford Shubrick, who was also a midshipman at the time. Cooper later dedicated The Pilot, The Red Rover and other writings to Shubrick.[23][24] Assigned to humdrum recruiting tasks rather than exciting voyages, Cooper resigned his commission from the navy in spring 1810; in the same time period he met, wooed, and became engaged to Susan Augusta de Lancey, whom he married on January 1, 1811. Writings[edit] First endeavors[edit] The Last of the MohicansIllustration from 1896 edition, by J. T. Merrill In 1820, when reading a contemporary novel to his wife Susan, he decided to try his hand at fiction, resulting in a neophyte novel set in England he called Precaution (1820). Its focus on morals and manners was influenced by Jane Austen's approach to fiction. Precaution was published anonymously and received modestly favorable notice in the United States and England.[25] By contrast, his second novel The Spy (1821) was inspired by an American tale related to him by neighbor and family friend John Jay. It became the first novel written by an American to become a bestseller at home and abroad, requiring several re-printings to satisfy demand. Set in the "Neutral Ground" between British and American forces and their guerrilla allies in Westchester County, New York, the action centers on spying and skirmishing taking place in and around what is widely believed to be John Jay's family home "The Locusts" in Rye, New York of which a portion still exists today as the historic Jay Estate.[26] Following on a swell of popularity, Cooper published The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking series in 1823. The series features the inter-racial friendship of Natty Bumppo, a resourceful American woodsman who is at home with the Delaware Indians, and their chief, Chingachgook. Bumppo was also the main character of Cooper's most famous novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826), written in New York City where Cooper and his family lived from 1822 to 1826. The book became one of the more widely read American novels of the 19th century.[27] At this time, Cooper had been living in New York on Beach Street in what is now downtown's Tribeca. In 1823, he became a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. In August of that same year, his first son died.[28] He organized the influential Bread and Cheese Club that brought together American writers, editors, artists, scholars, educators, art patrons, merchants, lawyers, politicians, and others.[29] In 1824, General Lafayette arrived from France aboard the Cadmus at Castle Garden in New York City as the nation's guest. Cooper witnessed his arrival and was one of the active committee of welcome and entertainment.[30][31] Europe[edit] In 1826, Cooper moved his family to Europe,[32] where he sought to gain more income from his books, provide better education for his children, improve his health, and observe European manners and politics firsthand. While overseas, he continued to write. His books published in Paris include The Prairie, the third Leather-Stocking Tale in which Natty Bumppo dies in the western land newly acquired by Jefferson as the Louisiana Purchase. There he also published The Red Rover and The Water Witch, two of his many sea stories. During his time in Paris, the Cooper family became active in the small American expatriate community. He became friends with painter (and later inventor) Samuel Morse and with French general and American Revolutionary War hero Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette.[33][7] Cooper admired the patrician liberalism of Lafayette, who sought to recruit him to his causes, and eulogized him as a man who "dedicated youth, person, and fortune, to the principles of liberty."[34] Cooper's distaste for the corruption of the European aristocracy, especially in England and France, grew as he observed them manipulate the legislature and judiciary to the exclusion of other classes.[35] In 1832, he entered the lists as a political writer in a series of letters to Le National, a Parisian journal. He defended the United States against a string of charges brought 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 frequently for both at once.[36] This opportunity to make a political confession of faith reflected the political turn that 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: The Abbaye des Vignerons (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 some Americans accused Cooper of apparently abandoning American life for European—not realizing that the political subterfuges in the European novels were cautions directed at his American audiences. Thus The Bravo was roughly treated by some critics in the United States.[37] Back to America[edit] Cooper's townhouse at 6 St. Mark's Place in the East Village, Manhattan[38] In 1833, Cooper returned to the United States and published "A Letter to My Countrymen" in which he gave his criticism of various social and political mores. Promotional material from a modern publisher summarizes his goals as follows: A Letter to My Countrymen remains Cooper's most trenchant work of social criticism. In it, he defines the role of the "man of letters" in a republic, the true conservative, the slavery of party affiliations, and the nature of the legislative branch of government. He also offers her most persuasive argument on why America should develop its own art and literary culture, ignoring the aristocratically tainted art of Europe.[39] Influenced by the ideals of classical republicanism, Cooper feared that the orgy of speculation he witnessed was destructive of civic virtue and warned Americans that it was a "mistake to suppose commerce favorable to liberty"; doing so would lead to a new "moneyed aristocracy". Drawing upon philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Burlamaqui, and Montesquieu, Cooper's political ideas were both democratic, deriving from the consent of the governed, and liberal, concerned with the rights of the individual.[40] In the later 1830s—despite his repudiation of authorship in "A Letter to My Countrymen"—he published Gleanings in Europe, five volumes of social and political analysis of his observations and experiences in Europe. His two novels Homeward Bound and Home as Found also criticize the flamboyant financial speculation and toadyism he found on his return; some readers and critics attacked the works for presenting a highly idealized self-portrait, which he vigorously denied.[citation needed] In June 1834, Cooper decided to reopen his ancestral mansion Otsego Hall at Cooperstown. It had long been closed and falling into decay; he had been absent from the mansion nearly 16 years. Repairs were begun, and the house was put in order. At first, he wintered in New York City and summered in Cooperstown, but eventually he made Otsego Hall his permanent home.[41] On May 10, 1839, Cooper published History of the Navy of the United States of America, a work that he had long planned on writing. He publicly announced his intentions to author such a historical work while abroad before departing for Europe in May 1826, during a parting speech at a dinner given in his honor: Encouraged by your kindness ... I will take this opportunity of recording the deeds and sufferings of a class of men to which this nation owes a debt of gratitude—a class of men among whom, I am always ready to declare, not only the earliest, but many of the happiest days of my youth have been passed.[42] Historical and nautical work[edit] Portrait by John Wesley Jarvis of Cooper in naval uniform Cooper's historical account of the U.S. Navy was well received, though his account of the roles played by the American leaders in the Battle of Lake Erie led to years of disputes with their descendants, as noted below. Cooper had begun thinking about this massive project in 1824, and concentrated on its research in the late 1830s. His close association with the U.S. Navy and various officers, and his familiarity with naval life at sea provided him the background and connections to research and write this work. Cooper's work is said to have stood the test of time and is considered an authoritative account of the U.S. Navy during that time.[43] In 1844, Cooper's Proceedings of the naval court martial in the case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, a commander in the navy of the United States, &c. was first published in Graham's Magazine of 1843–44. It was a review of the court martial of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie who had hanged three crew members of the brig USS Somers for mutiny while at sea. One of the hanged men, 19-year-old Philip Spencer, was the son of U.S. Secretary of War John C. Spencer. He was executed without court-martial along with two other sailors aboard the Somers for attempting mutiny. The Proceedings publication was one of Cooper's print skirmishes. Maritime historian Samuel Eliot Morison called it vindictive revenge for Mackenzie's publishing a critical review of Cooper's inaccurate history of the Battle of Lake Erie, noting that Cooper "flattered himself that his tract would 'finish' Mackenzie as a naval officer, which it certainly did not."[44] Others, however, assert that Cooper recognized the need for absolute discipline in a warship at sea, and felt sympathetic to Mackenzie over his pending court martial.[45][46] In 1843, an old shipmate, Ned Myers, re-entered Cooper's life. To assist him—and hopefully to cash in on the popularity of maritime biographies—Cooper wrote Myers's story which he published in 1843 as Ned Myers; or, A Life Before the Mast, an account of a common seaman still of interest to naval historians.[citation needed] In 1846, Cooper published Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers covering the biographies of William Bainbridge, Richard Somers, John Shaw, John Templar Shubrick, and Edward Preble.[47][48] Cooper died in 1851.[49] In May 1853, Cooper's Old Ironsides appeared in Putnam's Monthly. It was the history of the Navy ship USS Constitution and, after European and American Scenery Compared, 1852, was one of several posthumous publications of his writings.[50] In 1856, five years after Cooper's death, his History of the Navy of the United States of America was re-published in an expanded edition. The work was an account of the U.S. Navy in the early 19th century, through the Mexican War.[43][51] Among naval historians of today, the work has come to be recognized as a general and authoritative account. However, it was criticized for accuracy on some points by some contemporaries, especially those engaged in the disputes over the roles of their relatives in Cooper's separate history of the Battle of Lake Erie. Whig editors of the period regularly attacked anything Cooper wrote, leading him to numerous suits for libel, for example against Park Benjamin, Sr., a poet and editor of the Evening Signal of New York.[52] Critical reaction[edit] Cooper's writings of the 1830s related to current politics and social issues, coupled with his perceived self-promotion, increased the ill feeling between the author and some of the public. Criticism in print of his naval histories and the two Home novels came largely from newspapers supporting The Whig party, reflecting the antagonism between the Whigs and their opposition, the Democrats, whose policies Cooper often favored. Cooper's father William had been a staunch Federalist, a party now defunct but some of whose policies supporting large-scale capitalism the Whigs endorsed. Cooper himself had come to admire Thomas Jefferson, the bete-noire of the Federalists, and had supported Andrew Jackson's opposition to a National Bank. Never one to shrink from defending his personal honor and his sense of where the nation was erring, Cooper filed legal actions for libel against several Whig editors; his success with most of his lawsuits ironically led to more negative publicity from the Whig establishment.[citation needed] Buoyed by his frequent victories in court, Cooper returned to writing with more energy and success than he had had for several years. As noted above, on May 10, 1839, he published his History of the U.S. Navy;[43] his return to the Leatherstocking Tales series with The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841) brought him renewed favorable reviews. But on occasion he returned to addressing public issues, most notably with a trilogy of novels called the Littlepage Manuscripts addressing the issues of the anti-rent wars. Public sentiment largely favored the anti-renters, and Cooper's reviews again were largely negative. Later life[edit] Faced with competition from younger writers and magazine serialization, and lower prices for books resulting from new technologies, Cooper simply wrote more in his last decade than in either of the previous two. Half of his thirty-two novels were written in the 1840s. They may be grouped into three categories: Indian romances, maritime fiction, and political and social controversy—though the categories often overlap.[citation needed] The 1840s began with the last two novels featuring Natty Bumppo, both critical and reader successes: The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). Wyandotte, his last novel set in the Revolutionary War, followed in 1843 and Oak Openings in 1848. The nautical works were Mercedes of Castile (in which Columbus appears, 1840), The Two Admirals (British and French fleets in battle, 1842), Wing-And-Wing (a French privateer fighting the British in 1799, 1842), Afloat and Ashore (two volumes exploring a young man growing up, 1844), Jack Tier (a vicious smuggler in the Mexican-American War, 1848), and The Sea Lions (rival sealers in the Antarctic, 1849).[citation needed] He also turned from pure fiction to the combination of art and controversy in which he achieved notoriety in the novels of the previous decade. His Littlepage Manuscripts trilogy--Satanstoe (1845), The Chainbearer (1845), and The Redskins (1846)—dramatized issues of land ownership in response to renters in the 1840s opposing the long leases common in the old Dutch settlements in the Hudson Valley. He tried his hand with serialization with The Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief, first published in Graham's Magazine in 1843, a satire on contemporary nouveau riche. In The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak (1847) he introduced supernatural machinery to show the decline of an ideal society in the South Seas when demagogues prevail. The Ways of the Hour, his last completed novel, portrayed a mysterious and independent young woman defending herself against criminal charges.[53] Cooper spent the last years of his life back in Cooperstown. He died on September 14, 1851, the day before his 62nd birthday. He was buried in the Christ Episcopal Churchyard, where his father, William Cooper, was buried. Cooper's wife Susan survived her husband only by a few months and was buried by his side at Cooperstown.[citation needed] Several well-known writers, politicians, and other public figures honored Cooper's memory with a memorial in New York, six months after his death, in February 1852. Daniel Webster gave a speech to the gathering while Washington Irving served as a co-chairman, along with William Cullen Bryant, who also gave an address which did much to restore Cooper's damaged reputation among American writers of the time.[54][55] Religious activities[edit] Cooper's father was a lapsed Quaker; probably influenced by his wife's family, the DeLanceys, Cooper in his fiction often favorably depicted clergy of the Episcopal Church, though Calvinist ministers came in for their share of both admiring and critical treatment. In the 1840s as Cooper increasingly despaired over the United States maintaining the vision and promise of the Constitution, his fiction increasingly turned to religious themes. In The Wing-And-Wing, 1842, the hero, a French revolutionary free-thinker, loses the Italian girl he loves because he cannot accept her simple Christianity. In contrast, in the 1849 The Sea Lions the hero wins his beloved only after a spiritual transformation while marooned in the Antarctic. And the 1848 The Oak Openings features a pious Parson Amen who wins the admiration of the Indians who kill him, praying for them during torture.[citation needed] After establishing permanent residence in Cooperstown, Cooper became active in Christ Episcopal Church, taking on the roles of warden and vestryman. As the vestryman, he donated generously to this church and later supervised and redesigned its interior with oak furnishings at his own expense. He was also energetic as a representative from Cooperstown to various regional conventions of the Episcopal church. But only several months before his death, in July 1851, was he confirmed in this church by his brother-in-law, the Reverend William H. DeLancey.[56][57][58] Legacy[edit] Statue in Cooperstown, New York Cooper was honored on a U.S. commemorative stamp, the Famous American series, issued in 1940 Cooper was one of the more popular 19th-century American authors, and his work was admired greatly throughout the world.[59] While on his death bed, the Austrian composer Franz Schubert wanted most to read more of Cooper's novels.[60] Honoré de Balzac, the French novelist and playwright, admired him greatly.[61] Henry David Thoreau, while attending Harvard, incorporated some of Cooper's style in his own work.[62] D.H. Lawrence believed that Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Maupassant, and Flaubert were all "so very obvious and coarse, besides the lovely, mature and sensitive art of Fennimore Cooper." Lawrence called The Deerslayer "one of the most beautiful and perfect books in the world: flawless as a jewel and of gem-like concentration."[63] Cooper's work, particularly The Pioneers and The Pilot, demonstrate an early 19th-century American preoccupation with alternating prudence and negligence in a country where property rights were often still in dispute.[64] Cooper was one of the early major American novelists to include African, African-American and Native American characters in his works. In particular, Native Americans play central roles in his Leatherstocking Tales. However, his treatment of this group is complex and highlights the relationship between frontier settlers and American Indians as exemplified in The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, depicting a captured white girl who marries an Indian chief and has a baby with him, but after several years is eventually returned to her parents.[65] Often, he gives contrasting views of Native characters to emphasize their potential for good, or conversely, their proclivity for mayhem. The Last of the Mohicans includes both the character of Magua, who fearing the extinction of his race at the hands of the whites savagely betrays them, as well as Chingachgook, the last chief of the Mohicans, who is portrayed as Natty Bumppo's noble, courageous, and heroic counterpart.[66] In 1831, Cooper was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. According to Tad Szulc, Cooper was a devotee of Poland's causes (uprisings to regain Polish sovereignty). He organized a club in Paris to support the rebels, and brought flags of the defeated Polish rebel regiment from Warsaw to present them to the exiled leaders in Paris. With his friend the Marquis de La Fayette, he supported liberals during the regime changes in France and elsewhere in the 1830s.[67] Though some scholars have hesitated to classify Cooper as a strict Romantic, Victor Hugo pronounced him greatest novelist of the century outside France.[61] Honoré de Balzac, while mocking a few of Cooper's novels ("rhapsodies") and expressing reservations about his portrayal of characters, enthusiastically called The Pathfinder a masterpiece and professed great admiration for Cooper's portrayal of nature, only equalled in his view by Walter Scott.[68] Mark Twain, the ultimate Realist, criticized the Romantic plots and overwrought language of The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder in his satirical but shrewdly observant essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (1895).[69] Cooper was also criticized heavily in his day for his depiction of women characters in his work. James Russell Lowell, Cooper's contemporary and a critic, referred to it poetically in A Fable for Critics, writing, "... the women he draws from one model don't vary / All sappy as maples and flat as a prairie."[70] Cooper's lasting reputation today rests largely upon the five Leatherstocking Tales. In his 1960 study focusing on romantic relationships, both hetero- and homo-sexual, literary scholar Leslie Fiedler opines that with the exception of the five Natty Bumppo-Chingachgook novels, Cooper's "collected works are monumental in their cumulative dullness."[71] More recent criticism views all thirty-two novels in the context of Cooper's responding to changing political, social, and economic realities in his time period. Cooper was honored on a U.S. commemorative stamp, the Famous American series, issued in 1940. Cooper appears briefly as a character in Anya Seton's 1944 historical romance Dragonwyck. Three dining halls at the State University of New York at Oswego are named in Cooper's remembrance (Cooper Hall, The Pathfinder, and Littlepage) because of his temporary residence in Oswego and for setting some of his works there.[72] Cooper Park in Michigan's Comstock Township is named after him.[73] The New Jersey Turnpike has a James Fenimore Cooper service area, recognizing his birth in the state. The gilded and red tole chandelier hanging in the library of the White House in Washington DC is from the family of James Fenimore Cooper.[74] It was brought there through the efforts of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in her great White House restoration. The James Fenimore Cooper Memorial Prize at New York University is awarded annually to an outstanding undergraduate student of journalism.[75] In 2013, Cooper was inducted into the New York Writers Hall of Fame. Cooper's novels were very popular in the rest of the world, including, for instance, Russia. In particular, great interest of the Russian public in Cooper's work was primarily incited by the novel The Pathfinder, which the Russian literary critic Vissarion Belinsky declared to be "a Shakespearean drama in the form of a novel".[76] The author was more recognizable by his middle name, Fenimore, exotic to many in Russia. This name became a symbol of exciting adventures among Russian readers. For example, in the 1977 Soviet movie The Secret of Fenimore (Russian: Тайна Фенимора), being the third part of a children's television miniseries Three Cheerful Shifts (Russian: Три весёлые смены[77]), tells of a mysterious stranger known as Fenimore, visiting a boys' dorm in a summer camp nightly and relating fascinating stories about Indians and extraterrestrials. Works[edit] Novels[edit] Date Title: Subtitle Period Location Series Topic 1820 Precaution[78] 1813–1814 England Upper-class romances 1821 The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground[79] 1780 Westchester County, New York American Revolutionary War#3 Conflicts and espionage between military and guerrilla forces in Revolutionary War 1823 The Pioneers; or, The Sources of the Susquehanna[80] 1793–1794 Otsego County, New York Leatherstocking#4 A "Descriptive Tale" of early Cooperstown 1824 The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea[81] 1780 England American Revolutionary War#4 John Paul Jones. The American Revolution at sea 1825 Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer of Boston 1775–1781 Boston American Revolutionary War#2 Conflicts between Patriots and Loyalists leading to Bunker Hill 1826 The Last of the Mohicans: A narrative of 1757[82] 1757 Lake George & Adirondacks Leatherstocking#2 French and Indian War 1827 The Prairie[83] 1805 American Midwest Leatherstocking#5 The Louisiana Purchase 1828 The Red Rover: A Tale[84] 1759 Newport, Rhode Island & Atlantic Ocean pirates 1829 The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish: A Tale[85] 1660–1676 Western Connecticut Puritans and Indians, King Philip's War 1830 The Water-Witch; or, The Skimmer of the Seas[86] 1713 New York smugglers 1831 The Bravo: A Tale[87] 18th century Venice European Trilogy#2 Corruption of the Venetian Republic by oligarchs 1832 The Heidenmauer; or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine 16th century German Rhineland European Trilogy#1 The Protestant reformation and greed 1833 The Headsman: The Abbaye des Vignerons[88] 18th century Geneva, Switzerland, & the Alps European Trilogy#3 1835 The Monikins[89] 1830s Antarctica Aristocratic monkeys; a satire on British and American politics. 1838 Homeward Bound; or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea[90] 1835 Atlantic Ocean & North African coast Leatherstocking#6 The Effingham family, descendants of Oliver Effingham of The Pioneers, return home from Europe 1838 Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound[91] 1835 New York City & Templeton/Cooperstown, New York Leatherstocking#7 Eve Effingham and her family encounter a social world new to them 1840 The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea[92] 1759 Western New York Leatherstocking#3 Middle-aged Natty Bumppo falls in love 1840 Mercedes of Castile; or, The Voyage to Cathay 1490s West Indies Christopher Columbus 1841 The Deerslayer; or, The First Warpath 1740–1745 Otsego Lake Leatherstocking#1 Natty Bumppo as a youth 1842 The Two Admirals 1745 England & English Channel Scottish uprising 1842 The Wing-and-Wing; or, Le Feu-Follet[93] (Jack o Lantern) 1799 Italian coast Napoleonic Wars 1843 Wyandotté; or, The Hutted Knoll. A Tale[94] 1763–1776 Butternut Valley of Otsego County, New York American Revolutionary War#1 Indian romance 1844 Afloat and Ashore; or, The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale[95] 1795–1805 Ulster County & worldwide Miles Wallingford#1 1844 Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore[96] UK title: Lucy Hardinge: A Second Series of Afloat and Ashore (1844)[97] 1795–1805 Ulster County & worldwide Miles Wallingford#2 1845 Satanstoe; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony[98] 1758 New York City, Westchester County, Albany, Adirondacks Littlepage#1 Prequel to the "anti-rent wars" 1845 The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts 1780s Westchester County, Adirondacks Littlepage#2 Next Littlepage generation tries to settle in their lands after the Revolutionary War 1846 The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts 1845 Adirondacks Littlepage#3 Anti-rent wars. The "anti-rent" war full blown 1847 The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific[99] (Mark's Reef) 1810s Philadelphia, Bristol (PA), & deserted Pacific island Utopia destroyed by political strife 1848 Jack Tier; or, The Florida Reefs[100]a.k.a. Captain Spike; or, The Islets of the Gulf 1846 Florida Keys Mexican War 1848 The Oak Openings; or, The Bee-Hunter[101] 1812 Kalamazoo River, Michigan War 1849 The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers[102] 1819–1820 Long Island & Antarctica Heavy emphasis on religion. 1850 The Ways of the Hour 1846 "Dukes County, New York" murder/courtroom mystery, legal corruption, women's rights Novelette[edit] Date Title: Subtitle Period Location Topic 1843 Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief,[103] also published as Le Mouchoir: An Autobiographical Romance The French Governess; or, The Embroidered Handkerchief Die franzosischer Erzieheren: oder das gestickte Taschentuch 1830s France & New York Social satire on the nouveau riche Short Stories[edit] Date Title: Subtitle Topic 1823 Tales for Fifteen; or, Imagination and Heart[104] moralistic collection of 2 tales written under the pseudonym: Jane Morgan 1832 No Steamboats allegory satirising European misconceptions about America which Cooper first wrote in French 1836 An Execution at Sea[105] execution of a murderer on a ship. Cooper's authorship is questionable. 1851 The Lake Gun[106] Seneca Lake in New York, political satire based on folklore Play[edit] Date Title: Subtitle Topic 1850 Upside Down; or, Philosophy in Petticoats satirisation of socialism Non-Fiction[edit] Date Title: Subtitle Genre Topic 1828 Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor non-fiction Cooper's response to Lafayette's request to present Americas favourably to Europeans 1830 Letter to General Lafayette politics France vs. US, cost of government 1834 A Letter to His Countrymen politics Why Cooper temporarily stopped writing 1836 The Eclipse[107]Listen to The Eclipse by James Fenimore Cooper on YouTube memoir Solar eclipse in Cooperstown, New York Cooper's reaction to a criminal whose execution was stayed, 1806 1836 Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland (Sketches of Switzerland) travel Hiking in Switzerland, 1828. All five Gleanings books full of social and political commentary. 1836 Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine (Sketches of Switzerland, Part Second) travel Travels France, Rhineland & Switzerland, 1832 1836 A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland[108] travel 1837 Gleanings in Europe: France travel Living, travelling in France, 1826–1828; author's involvement in the political upheavals of the period 1837 Gleanings in Europe: England travel Travels in England, 1826, 1828, 1833; dislike of English aristocracy 1838 Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel Living, travelling in Italy, 1828–1830 1838 The American Democrat; or, Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America non-fiction US society and government 1838 The Chronicles of Cooperstown history Local history of Cooperstown, New York 1839 The History of the Navy of the United States of America history U.S. naval history to date 1839 Old Ironsides[109] history History of the Frigate USS Constitution, 1st pub. 1853 1843 Richard Dale biography 1843 Ned Myers; or, Life before the Mast[110] biography of Cooper's shipmate who survived an 1813 sinking of a US sloop of war in a storm 1844 Proceedings of the naval court martial in the case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie Non-fiction Detailed legal assessment of Mackenzie's execution of alleged mutineers 1846 Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography 1851 New York; or, The Towns of Manhattan[111] history Unfinished, history of New York City, 1st pub. 1864 Bibliography[edit] Excursions in Italy, 1838 Evans, Sarah; Fifer, Abby; Reynolds, Jenn (2014). "Biography of James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)". American Studies at the University of Virginia. Archived from the original on March 27, 2014. Retrieved September 8, 2010. Clymer, William Branford Shubrick (1900). James Fenimore Cooper. Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company. ISBN 978-0-795-01172-6. Read at the Internet Archive (Registration is required) Franklin, Wayne (2007). James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years. James Fenimore Coope. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10805-7. Read at the Internet Archive (Registration is required) Franklin, Wayne (2017). James Fenimore Cooper: The Later Years. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13571-8. Hale, Edward Everett (1896). Illustrious Americans, Their Lives and Great Achievements. Hamilton Wright Mabie. Philadelphia and Chicago: International Publishing Company Philadelphia and Chicago, Entered 1896, by W.E. Scull, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, DC. ISBN 978-1-162-22702-3. Lounsbury, Thomas R. (1882). James Fenimore Cooper. American Men of Letters. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. McCullough, David (2011). The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-7176-6. O'Daniel, Therman B. (1947). "Cooper's Treatment of the Negro". Phylon. 8 (2): 164–176. doi:10.2307/271724. JSTOR 271724. Phillips, Mary Elizabeth (1913). James Fenimore Cooper. New York and London: John Lane Company. ISBN 978-0-795-01174-0. Read at the Internet Archive (Registration is required) Roosevelt, Theodore (1883). The Naval War of 1812. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Read at the Internet Archive (Registration is required) Wright, Wayne W. (1983). MacDougal, Hugh C. (ed.). "The Cooper Genealogy". Proceedings of New York State Historical Association. Archived from the original on November 14, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2023. Primary sources[edit] Fenimore Cooper, James (1846). Lives of distinguished American naval officers. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart. OCLC 620356. Read at the Internet Archive (Registration is required) Fenimore Cooper, James (1852). The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts. New York: Stringer & Townsend. Fenimore Cooper, James (1853). Old Ironsides. James Fenimore Cooper Society. Fenimore Cooper, James (1856). History of the Navy of the United States of America. New York: Stringer & Townsend. ISBN 978-0-665-44639-9. OCLC 197401914. Alternative copy at the Internet Archive (Registration is required) Notes[edit] ^ At this time, the British naval practice of seizing American sailors, accusing them of desertion, and impressing them into the British navy was common. It is largely what led to the War of 1812.[14] ^ Accounts vary: Phillips, 1913, p. 53 puts the date at January 12.[16] ^ Records of the government or Department of Navy provide little information regarding his movements and activities in the Navy. Knowledge of Cooper's life comes primarily from what he divulged in his published works, notes, and letters of that period.[22] References[edit] ^ Phillips 1913, pp. 6–7. ^ a b Lounsbury 1882, pp. 7–8. ^ Clary, Suzanne (November 17, 2010). "James Fenimore Cooper and Spies in Rye". My Rye.com. ^ a b Hale 1896, p. 657. ^ Taylor, Alan (1991). "From Fathers to Friends of the People: Political Personas in the Early Republic". Journal of the Early Republic. 11 (4): 465–491 [475]. doi:10.2307/3123352. JSTOR 3123352. ^ Lounsbury 1882, p. 2. ^ a b McCullough 2011, p. 70. ^ Evans, Fifer & Reynolds 2014. ^ Franklin 2007, p. 101. ^ Clymer 1900, xii. ^ "Susan Fenimore Cooper". Retrieved November 21, 2011. ^ Clymer 1900, xi. ^ Phillips 1913, pp. 43–44. ^ Roosevelt 1883, pp. 1–3. ^ Franklin 2007, p. 89. ^ a b Phillips 1913, p. 53. ^ Lounsbury 1882, p. 216. ^ Franklin 2007, pp. 101–102. ^ Franklin 2007, pp. 110–111. ^ Clymer 1900, p. 12. ^ Phillips 1913, pp. 54–55. ^ Lounsbury 1882, p. 11. ^ Phillips 1913, p. 216. ^ Lounsbury 1882, p. 12. ^ Harpers New Monthly Magazine – The Haunted Lake (1st ed.). Harper and Brothers. 1872. pp. 20–30. ^ Hicks, Paul (December 7, 2014). "A Little Local History: The Spymaster and the Author". The Rye Record. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2015. ^ Manning, Martin J.; Wyatt, Clarence R., eds. (2011). "The Last of the Mohicans". Encyclopedia of Media and Propaganda in Wartime America Volume I. ABC-CLIO. pp. 75–76. ISBN 978-1-598-84228-9. ^ Phillips 1913, p. 99. ^ "Bread and Cheese Club - American intellectual group". Encyclopædia Britannica. ^ Phillips 1913, p. 114. ^ Franklin 2007, p. 314. ^ Excursion in Italy. 1838. ^ Phillips 1913, p. 239. ^ McWilliams, John P. (1972). Political Justice in a Republic: James Fenimore Cooper's America. University of California Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-520-02175-4. ^ McWilliams, John P. (1972). Political Justice in a Republic: James Fenimore Cooper's America. University of California Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-520-02175-4. ^  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Henley, William Ernest (1911). "Cooper, James Fenimore". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 79–80. ^ Fenimore Cooper, Susan. "Introductions to Novels by James Fenimore Cooper - The Bravo". James Fenimore Cooper Society. ^ Phillips 1913, p. 272. ^ Fenimore Cooper, James; Birzer, Bradley J. (2001). Willson, John (ed.). The American Democrat and Other Political Writings. Conservative Leadership Series. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-0-895-26242-4. ^ Diggins, John Patrick (1986). The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism. University of Chicago Press. pp. 180−190. ISBN 978-0-226-14877-9. ^ Clymer 1900, xi-xv. ^ Lounsbury 1882, p. 200. ^ a b c Phillips 1913, p. 277. ^ Morison, Samuel Eliot (1967). "Old Bruin": Commodore Matthew C. Perry (first ed.). Little, Brown. pp. 143, 161. ^ Phillips 1913, pp. 305–306. ^ Clymer 1900, pp. 110–111. ^ Fenimore Cooper 1846, p. 436. ^ Phillips 1913, p. 308. ^ "Funeral of James Fenimore Cooper". The New York Times. September 23, 1851. p. 4. ProQuest 95768893. Retrieved January 25, 2023. ^ Fenimore Cooper 1853, p. 49. ^ Fenimore Cooper 1856, p. 508. ^ Clymer 1900, pp. 94, 107. ^ Book of James Fenimore Cooper. Retrieved October 17, 2012. ^ Jones, Brian Jay (2008). Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Publishing. p. 391. ISBN 978-1-559-70836-4. ^ Hale 1896, p. 658. ^ Lounsbury 1882, p. 23. ^ Phillips 1913, pp. 340–341. ^ See Fowler, 'Modern English Usage,' Mencken 'The American Language.' 'Crockford's Clerical Directory,' or 1969 ed. 'American Heritage Dictionary' for the correct use of the adjective "reverend." It is to be used exactly as the adjective "honorable" is used. One would not call Judge John Smith "the Honorable Smith." ^ Ross, Ernest C. (1927). Books Abroad. Vol. 1. University of Oklahoma. pp. 78–79. doi:10.2307/40043351. JSTOR 40043351. ^ Letter from Schubert to Franz von Schober, November 12, 1828 ^ a b Phillips 1913, p. 350. ^ Franklin 2007, xxix. ^ Ellis, Dave (1998). D.H. Lawrence: Dying Game 1922–1930. Cambridge University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-521-25421-2. ^ Goodman, Nan (1998), Shifting the Blame: Literature, Law, and the Theory of Accidents in Nineteenth-Century America, Princeton University Press ^ Phillips 1913, pp. 189–190. ^ Clymer 1900, pp. 43–44. ^ Szulc, 1998, p. 86 ^ Gozlan, Léon (1856). Balzac en pantoufles (in French). Paris: M. Lévy frères. p. 73. ^ "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences". Etext.virginia.edu. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ Porte, Joel (1969). The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and James. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. p. 20. ^ Fiedler, Leslie (2008). Love and Death in the American Novel. Dalkey Archive Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-1-564-78163-5. ^ "Penfield Library: Who Were Our Buildings?". State University of New York at Oswego. October 1, 1966. Archived from the original on September 27, 2012. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ "Comstock Township Parks". Charter Township Of Comstock. Retrieved June 17, 2020. ^ "Library". White House Library. ^ "Honors and Awards (2010-12)". New York University College of Arts & Science. Archived from the original on June 10, 2010. ^ Belinsky, Vissarion Grigorievich (1841). Разделение поэзии на роды и виды [The Division of Poetry into Genera and Species] (in Russian). Retrieved February 28, 2014. (In English: Cooper is here deep interpreter of the human heart, a great painter of the world of the soul, like Shakespeare. Definitely and clearly he uttered the unspeakable, reconciled and merged together internal and external—and his "The Pathfinder" is a Shakespearean drama in the form of the novel, the only creature in this way, having nothing equal with him, the triumph of modern art in the epic poetry.) ^ See Tri vesyolye smeny (1977) at IMDb ^ James Fenimore Cooper (December 1, 2003). Precaution. Gutenberg Project. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (February 1, 2006). The Spy. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (August 1, 2000). The Pioneers. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (April 1, 2005). The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (February 5, 2006). The Last of the Mohicans; A Narrative of 1757. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (September 1, 2004). The Prairie. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (March 1, 2004). The Red Rover. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (September 1, 2005). The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (May 1, 2004). The Water-Witch; or, The Skimmer of the Seas. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (December 1, 2003). The Bravo. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (February 1, 2004). The Headsman. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (May 1, 2003). The Monikins. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (February 1, 2006). Homeward Bound; or, The Chase. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (November 1, 2003). Home as Found. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (September 1, 1999). Pathfinder; or, The Inland Sea. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (April 1, 2004). The Wing-and-Wing. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (December 1, 2003). Wyandotté; or, The Hutted Knoll. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (August 1, 2005). Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (February 1, 2004). Miles Wallingford. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (1844). Lucy Hardinge: A Second Series of Afloat and Ashore, by the author of 'The pilot'. R. Bentley. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (September 1, 2005). Satanstoe; or, the Littlepage Manuscripts. A Tale of the Colony. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (March 1, 2004). The Crater. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (December 1, 2003). Jack Tier. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (July 1, 2003). Oak Openings. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (December 1, 2003). The Sea Lions. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (September 1, 2000). Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (August 1, 2000). Tales for Fifteen; or, Imagination and Heart. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ Philbrick, Thomas (1961). James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction. Harvard University Press. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (September 1, 2000). The Lake Gun. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ "The Eclipse". James Fenimore Cooper Society. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (July 22, 2004). A Residence in France. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ "Old Ironsides". James Fenimore Cooper Society. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (January 1, 2006). Ned Myers; or, A Life Before the Mast. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. ^ James Fenimore Cooper (January 1, 2001). New York. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 24, 2012. Further reading[edit] Clavel, Marcel (1938). Fenimore Cooper and His Critics: American, British and French Criticisms of the Novelist's Early Work. Presses Universitaires de Provence. Darnell, Donald (1993). James Fenimore Cooper: Novelist of Manners. Newark: University of Delaware Press. ISBN 978-0-874-13487-2. Dekker, George (2017). James Fenimore Cooper the Novelist. Routledge Library Editions: The American Novel. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-58001-4. Doolen, Andy (2005). Fugitive Empire: Locating Early American Imperialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-816-64453-7. Franklin, Wayne (1982). The New World of James Fenimore Cooper. Chicago Originals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-608-09299-7. Krauthammer, Anna (2008). The Representation of the Savage in James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-0-820-46810-5. Long, Robert Emmet (1990). James Fenimore Cooper. Literature and life: American writers. New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-826-40431-2. OCLC 20296972. MacDougall, Hugh Cooke (1993). Where Was James? A James Fenimore Cooper Chronology from 1789–1851. Cooperstown: James Fenimore Cooper Society. Rans, Geoffrey (1991). Cooper's Leather-Stocking Novels: A Secular Reading. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-807-81975-3. Redekop, Ernest H., ed. (1989). "James Fenimore Cooper, 1789–1989: Bicentennial Essays". Canadian Review of American Studies. 20 (3): 1–164. ISSN 0007-7720. Reid, Margaret K. (2004). Cultural Secrets as Narrative Form: Storytelling in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. ISBN 978-0-814-20947-9. Ringe, Donald A. (1988). James Fenimore Cooper. Twayne's United States Authors Series. Boston: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-805-77527-3. Romero, Lora (1997). Home Fronts: Domesticity and Its Critics in the Antebellum United States. New Americanists. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-822-32030-2. Smith, Lindsey C. (2008). Indians, Environment, and Identity on the Borders of American Literature: From Faulkner and Morrison to Walker and Silko. American Literature Readings in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-60541-1. Valtiala, Nalle (1998). James Fenimore Cooper's Landscapes in the Leather-Stocking Series and Other Forest Tales, Volume 300. Proceedings of the Finnish Academy of Sciences: Humanities. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. ISBN 978-9-514-10860-0. ISSN 1239-6982. Verhoeven, W. M. (1993). James Fenimore Cooper: New Historical and Literary Contexts. Critical Heritage Series. Rodopi Publishers. ISBN 978-9-051-83360-7. External links[edit] James Fenimore Cooper at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from WikisourceTextbooks from Wikibooks Works by James Fenimore Cooper in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by James Fenimore Cooper at Project Gutenberg Works by or about James Fenimore Cooper at the Internet Archive Works by James Fenimore Cooper at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) James Fenimore Cooper at Open Library James Fenimore Cooper Society Homepage Archived September 6, 2015, at the Wayback Machine James Fenimore Cooper at IMDb Finding Aid for the James Fenimore Cooper Collection of Papers, 1825–1904, New York Public Library James Fenimore Cooper Letters and Manuscript Fragments. Available online though Lehigh University's I Remain: A Digital Archive of Letters, Manuscripts, and Ephemera "Writings of James Fenimore Cooper" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", an essay by Mark Twain James Fenimore Cooper Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. vteWorks by James Fenimore CooperLeatherstocking Tales novels The Deerslayer The Last of the Mohicans The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea The Pioneers The Prairie Other novels Afloat and Ashore Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief The Bravo The Chainbearer The Crater The Headsman: The Abbaye des Vignerons The Heidenmauer Homeward Bound Home as Found Jack Tier, or the Florida Reef Lionel Lincoln Mercedes of Castile Miles Wallingford The Monikins The Oak Openings The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea Precaution The Red Rover The Redskins Satanstoe The Sea Lions The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground The Two Admirals The Water-Witch The Ways of the Hour The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish The Wing-and-Wing Wyandotté Short stories and plays Tales for Fifteen No Steamboats Upside Down The Lake Gun Non-fiction The Chronicles of Cooperstown The Eclipse The History of the Navy of the United States of America Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers Ned Myers New York: or The Towns of Manhattan Notions of the Americans Old Ironsides Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c. Political writings Letter to General Lafayette A Letter to His Countrymen The American Democrat Travel writings Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine A Residence in France Gleanings in Europe: France Gleanings in Europe: England Gleanings in Europe: Italy Commons Wikiquote Wikisource texts vteJames Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the MohicansFictional characters Magua Chingachgook Natty Bumppo Historical characters Colonel Munro Daniel Webb Marquis de Montcalm Tamenund Films Leather Stocking (1909) The Last of the Mohicans (1920 American) The Last of the Mohicans (1920 German) The Last of the Mohicans (1932) The Last of the Mohicans (1936) Last of the Redskins (1947) The Last Tomahawk (1965) Fall of the Mohicans (1965) The Last of the Mohicans (1968) The Last of the Mohicans (1971) Last of the Mohicans (1977) The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Related Capture and rescue of Jemima Boone Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans Leatherstocking Tales The Last of the Mohicans (soundtrack) vteRomanticismCountries Denmark England (literature) France (literature) Germany Japan Norway Poland Russia (literature) Scotland Spain (literature) Sweden (literature) Movements Ancients Bohemianism Coppet group Counter-Enlightenment Dark Düsseldorf School German historical school Gothic revival Hudson River School Indianism Jena Lake Poets Nationalist Nazarene movement Neo Pre Sturm und Drang Post Purismo Transcendentalism Ukrainian school Ultra Wallenrodism Themes Blue flower British Marine Gesamtkunstwerk Gothic fiction Hero Byronic Romantic Historical fiction Mal du siècle Medievalism Noble savage Nostalgia Ossian Pantheism Rhine Romantic genius Wanderlust Weltschmerz White Mountain art WritersBrazil Abreu Alencar Manuel Antônio de Almeida Alves Assis Azevedo Barreto Dias Guimarães Macedo Magalhães Reis Taunay Varela France Baudelaire Bertrand Chateaubriand Dumas Gautier Hugo Lamartine Mérimée Musset Nerval Nodier Staël Vigny Germany A. v. 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The sudden and almost magical change, from the stirring incidents of the combat to the stillness that now reigned around him, acted on the heated imagination of Heyward like some exciting dream. While all the images and events he had witnessed remained deeply impressed on his memory, he felt a difficulty in persuading him of their truth. Still ignorant of the fate of those who had trusted to the aid of the swift current, he at first listened intently to any signal or sounds of alarm, which might announce the good or evil fortune of their hazardous undertaking. His attention was, however, bestowed in vain; for with the disappearance of Uncas, every sign of the adventurers had been lost, leaving him in total uncertainty of their fate.
In a moment of such painful doubt, Duncan did not hesitate to look around him, without consulting that protection from the rocks which just before had been so necessary to his safety. Every effort, however, to detect the least evidence of the approach of their hidden enemies was as fruitless as the inquiry after his late companions. The wooded banks of the river seemed again deserted by everything possessing animal life. The uproar which had so lately echoed through the vaults of the forest was gone, leaving the rush of the waters to swell and sink on the currents of the air, in the unmingled sweetness of nature. A fish-hawk, which, secure on the topmost branches of a dead pine, had been a distant spectator of the fray, now swooped from his high and ragged perch, and soared, in wide sweeps, above his prey; while a jay, whose noisy voice had been stilled by the hoarser cries of the savages, ventured again to open his discordant throat, as though once more in undisturbed possession of his wild domains. Duncan caught from these natural accompaniments of the solitary scene a glimmering of hope; and he began to rally his faculties to renewed exertions, with something like a reviving confidence of success.
“The Hurons are not to be seen,” he said, addressing David, who had by no means recovered from the effects of the stunning blow he had received; “let us conceal ourselves in the cavern, and trust the rest to Providence.” “I remember to have united with two comely maidens, in lifting up our voices in praise and thanksgiving,” returned the bewildered singing-master; “since which time I have been visited by a heavy judgment for my sins. I have been mocked with the likeness of sleep, while sounds of discord have rent my ears, such as might manifest the fullness of time, and that nature had forgotten her harmony.” “Poor fellow! thine own period was, in truth, near its accomplishment! But arouse, and come with me; I will lead you where all other sounds but those of your own psalmody shall be excluded.” “There is melody in the fall of the cataract, and the rushing of many waters is sweet to the senses!” said David, pressing his hand confusedly on his brow. “Is not the air yet filled with shrieks and cries, as though the departed spirits of the damned—”
“Not now, not now,” interrupted the impatient Heyward, “they have ceased, and they who raised them, I trust in God, they are gone, too! everything but the water is still and at peace; in, then, where you may create those sounds you love so well to hear.” David smiled sadly, though not without a momentary gleam of pleasure, at this allusion to his beloved vocation. He no longer hesitated to be led to a spot which promised such unalloyed gratification to his wearied senses; and leaning on the arm of his companion, he entered the narrow mouth of the cave. Duncan seized a pile of the sassafras, which he drew before the passage, studiously concealing every appearance of an aperture. Within this fragile barrier he arranged the blankets abandoned by the foresters, darkening the inner extremity of the cavern, while its outer received a chastened light from the narrow ravine, through which one arm of the river rushed to form the junction with its sister branch a few rods below. “I like not the principle of the natives, which teaches them to submit without a struggle, in emergencies that appear desperate,” he said, while busied in this employment; “our own maxim, which says, ‘while life remains there is hope’, is more consoling, and better suited to a soldier’s temperament. To you, Cora, I will urge no words of idle encouragement; your own fortitude and undisturbed reason will teach you all that may become your sex; but cannot we dry the tears of that trembling weeper on your bosom?”
“I am calmer, Duncan,” said Alice, raising herself from the arms of her sister, and forcing an appearance of composure through her tears; “much calmer, now. Surely, in this hidden spot we are safe, we are secret, free from injury; we will hope everything from those generous men who have risked so much already in our behalf.” “Now does our gentle Alice speak like a daughter of Munro!” said Heyward, pausing to press her hand as he passed toward the outer entrance of the cavern. “With two such examples of courage before him, a man would be ashamed to prove other than a hero.” He then seated himself in the center of the cavern, grasping his remaining pistol with a hand convulsively clenched, while his contracted and frowning eye announced the sullen desperation of his purpose. “The Hurons, if they come, may not gain our position so easily as they think,” he slowly muttered; and propping his head back against the rock, he seemed to await the result in patience, though his gaze was unceasingly bent on the open avenue to their place of retreat. With the last sound of his voice, a deep, a long, and almost breathless silence succeeded. The fresh air of the morning had penetrated the recess, and its influence was gradually felt on the spirits of its inmates. As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully destroy.
David alone formed an exception to these varying emotions. A gleam of light from the opening crossed his wan countenance, and fell upon the pages of the little volume, whose leaves he was again occupied in turning, as if searching for some song more fitted to their condition than any that had yet met their eye. He was, most probably, acting all this time under a confused recollection of the promised consolation of Duncan. At length, it would seem, his patient industry found its reward; for, without explanation or apology, he pronounced aloud the words “Isle of Wight,” drew a long, sweet sound from his pitch-pipe, and then ran through the preliminary modulations of the air whose name he had just mentioned, with the sweeter tones of his own musical voice. “May not this prove dangerous?” asked Cora, glancing her dark eye at Major Heyward. “Poor fellow! his voice is too feeble to be heard above the din of the falls,” was the answer; “beside, the cavern will prove his friend. Let him indulge his passions since it may be done without hazard.”
“Isle of Wight!” repeated David, looking about him with that dignity with which he had long been wont to silence the whispering echoes of his school; “‘tis a brave tune, and set to solemn words! let it be sung with meet respect!” After allowing a moment of stillness to enforce his discipline, the voice of the singer was heard, in low, murmuring syllables, gradually stealing on the ear, until it filled the narrow vault with sounds rendered trebly thrilling by the feeble and tremulous utterance produced by his debility. The melody, which no weakness could destroy, gradually wrought its sweet influence on the senses of those who heard it. It even prevailed over the miserable travesty of the song of David which the singer had selected from a volume of similar effusions, and caused the sense to be forgotten in the insinuating harmony of the sounds. Alice unconsciously dried her tears, and bent her melting eyes on the pallid features of Gamut, with an expression of chastened delight that she neither affected or wished to conceal. Cora bestowed an approving smile on the pious efforts of the namesake of the Jewish prince, and Heyward soon turned his steady, stern look from the outlet of the cavern, to fasten it, with a milder character, on the face of David, or to meet the wandering beams which at moments strayed from the humid eyes of Alice. The open sympathy of the listeners stirred the spirit of the votary of music, whose voice regained its richness and volume, without losing that touching softness which proved its secret charm. Exerting his renovated powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.
“We are lost!” exclaimed Alice, throwing herself into the arms of Cora. “Not yet, not yet,” returned the agitated but undaunted Heyward: “the sound came from the center of the island, and it has been produced by the sight of their dead companions. We are not yet discovered, and there is still hope.” Faint and almost despairing as was the prospect of escape, the words of Duncan were not thrown away, for it awakened the powers of the sisters in such a manner that they awaited the results in silence. A second yell soon followed the first, when a rush of voices was heard pouring down the island, from its upper to its lower extremity, until they reached the naked rock above the caverns, where, after a shout of savage triumph, the air continued full of horrible cries and screams, such as man alone can utter, and he only when in a state of the fiercest barbarity.
The sounds quickly spread around them in every direction. Some called to their fellows from the water’s edge, and were answered from the heights above. Cries were heard in the startling vicinity of the chasm between the two caves, which mingled with hoarser yells that arose out of the abyss of the deep ravine. In short, so rapidly had the savage sounds diffused themselves over the barren rock, that it was not difficult for the anxious listeners to imagine they could be heard beneath, as in truth they were above on every side of them.
In the midst of this tumult, a triumphant yell was raised within a few yards of the hidden entrance to the cave. Heyward abandoned every hope, with the belief it was the signal that they were discovered. Again the impression passed away, as he heard the voices collect near the spot where the white man had so reluctantly abandoned his rifle. Amid the jargon of Indian dialects that he now plainly heard, it was easy to distinguish not only words, but sentences, in the patois of the Canadas. A burst of voices had shouted simultaneously, “La Longue Carabine!” causing the opposite woods to re-echo with a name which, Heyward well remembered, had been given by his enemies to a celebrated hunter and scout of the English camp, and who, he now learned for the first time, had been his late companion.
“La Longue Carabine! La Longue Carabine!” passed from mouth to mouth, until the whole band appeared to be collected around a trophy which would seem to announce the death of its formidable owner. After a vociferous consultation, which was, at times, deafened by bursts of savage joy, they again separated, filling the air with the name of a foe, whose body, Heywood could collect from their expressions, they hoped to find concealed in some crevice of the island. “Now,” he whispered to the trembling sisters, “now is the moment of uncertainty! if our place of retreat escape this scrutiny, we are still safe! In every event, we are assured, by what has fallen from our enemies, that our friends have escaped, and in two short hours we may look for succor from Webb.”
There were now a few minutes of fearful stillness, during which Heyward well knew that the savages conducted their search with greater vigilance and method. More than once he could distinguish their footsteps, as they brushed the sassafras, causing the faded leaves to rustle, and the branches to snap. At length, the pile yielded a little, a corner of a blanket fell, and a faint ray of light gleamed into the inner part of the cave. Cora folded Alice to her bosom in agony, and Duncan sprang to his feet. A shout was at that moment heard, as if issuing from the center of the rock, announcing that the neighboring cavern had at length been entered. In a minute, the number and loudness of the voices indicated that the whole party was collected in and around that secret place.
As the inner passages to the two caves were so close to each other, Duncan, believing that escape was no longer possible, passed David and the sisters, to place himself between the latter and the first onset of the terrible meeting. Grown desperate by his situation, he drew nigh the slight barrier which separated him only by a few feet from his relentless pursuers, and placing his face to the casual opening, he even looked out with a sort of desperate indifference, on their movements.
Within reach of his arm was the brawny shoulder of a gigantic Indian, whose deep and authoritative voice appeared to give directions to the proceedings of his fellows. Beyond him again, Duncan could look into the vault opposite, which was filled with savages, upturning and rifling the humble furniture of the scout. The wound of David had dyed the leaves of sassafras with a color that the native well knew as anticipating the season. Over this sign of their success, they sent up a howl, like an opening from so many hounds who had recovered a lost trail. After this yell of victory, they tore up the fragrant bed of the cavern, and bore the branches into the chasm, scattering the boughs, as if they suspected them of concealing the person of the man they had so long hated and feared. One fierce and wild-looking warrior approached the chief, bearing a load of the brush, and pointing exultingly to the deep red stains with which it was sprinkled, uttered his joy in Indian yells, whose meaning Heyward was only enabled to comprehend by the frequent repetition of the name “La Longue Carabine!” When his triumph had ceased, he cast the brush on the slight heap Duncan had made before the entrance of the second cavern, and closed the view. His example was followed by others, who, as they drew the branches from the cave of the scout, threw them into one pile, adding, unconsciously, to the security of those they sought. The very slightness of the defense was its chief merit, for no one thought of disturbing a mass of brush, which all of them believed, in that moment of hurry and confusion, had been accidentally raised by the hands of their own party.
As the blankets yielded before the outward pressure, and the branches settled in the fissure of the rock by their own weight, forming a compact body, Duncan once more breathed freely. With a light step and lighter heart, he returned to the center of the cave, and took the place he had left, where he could command a view of the opening next the river. While he was in the act of making this movement, the Indians, as if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke away from the chasm in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again, toward the point whence they had originally descended. Here another wailing cry betrayed that they were again collected around the bodies of their dead comrades. Duncan now ventured to look at his companions; for, during the most critical moments of their danger, he had been apprehensive that the anxiety of his countenance might communicate some additional alarm to those who were so little able to sustain it. “They are gone, Cora!” he whispered; “Alice, they are returned whence they came, and we are saved! To Heaven, that has alone delivered us from the grasp of so merciless an enemy, be all the praise!”
Then to Heaven will I return my thanks!” exclaimed the younger sister, rising from the encircling arm of Cora, and casting herself with enthusiastic gratitude on the naked rock; “to that Heaven who has spared the tears of a gray-headed father; has saved the lives of those I so much love.” Both Heyward and the more temperate Cora witnessed the act of involuntary emotion with powerful sympathy, the former secretly believing that piety had never worn a form so lovely as it had now assumed in the youthful person of Alice. Her eyes were radiant with the glow of grateful feelings; the flush of her beauty was again seated on her cheeks, and her whole soul seemed ready and anxious to pour out its thanksgivings through the medium of her eloquent features. But when her lips moved, the words they should have uttered appeared frozen by some new and sudden chill. Her bloom gave place to the paleness of death; her soft and melting eyes grew hard, and seemed contracting with horror; while those hands, which she had raised, clasped in each other, toward heaven, dropped in horizontal lines before her, the fingers pointed forward in convulsed motion. Heyward turned the instant she gave a direction to his suspicions, and peering just above the ledge which formed the threshold of the open outlet of the cavern, he beheld the malignant, fierce and savage features of Le Renard Subtil.
In that moment of surprise, the self-possession of Heyward did not desert him. He observed by the vacant expression of the Indian’s countenance, that his eye, accustomed to the open air had not yet been able to penetrate the dusky light which pervaded the depth of the cavern. He had even thought of retreating beyond a curvature in the natural wall, which might still conceal him and his companions, when by the sudden gleam of intelligence that shot across the features of the savage, he saw it was too late, and that they were betrayed.The look of exultation and brutal triumph which announced this terrible truth was irresistibly irritating. Forgetful of everything but the impulses of his hot blood, Duncan leveled his pistol and fired. The report of the weapon made the cavern bellow like an eruption from a volcano; and when the smoke it vomited had been driven away before the current of air which issued from the ravine the place so lately occupied by the features of his treacherous guide was vacant. Rushing to the outlet, Heyward caught a glimpse of his dark figure stealing around a low and narrow ledge, which soon hid him entirely from sight.
Among the savages a frightful stillness succeeded the explosion, which had just been heard bursting from the bowels of the rock. But when Le Renard raised his voice in a long and intelligible whoop, it was answered by a spontaneous yell from the mouth of every Indian within hearing of the sound.The clamorous noises again rushed down the island; and before Duncan had time to recover from the shock, his feeble barrier of brush was scattered to the winds, the cavern was entered at both its extremities, and he and his companions were dragged from their shelter and borne into the day, where they stood surrounded by the whole band of the triumphant Hurons.
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Rating: Words in the Passage: 3362 Unique Words: 1,136 Sentences: 120
Noun: 868 Conjunction: 217 Adverb: 195 Interjection: 0
Adjective: 276 Pronoun: 287 Verb: 579 Preposition: 494
Letter Count: 15,377 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral (Slightly Formal) Difficult Words: 762
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