James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was an American novelist born in New Jersey who was raised in upstate New York. He attended Yale College but left to join the U.S. Navy, resigning his commission in 1811. He wrote numerous novels throughout his career, including The Spy (1821), The Pioneers (1823), and The Last of the Mohicans (1826), which is often cited as his masterpiece. Later in life, Cooper became embroiled in controversies over his political views and criticism of America, publishing works to defend himself and impose his convictions. He continued writing novels throughout his life, producing works both with and without political purposes, before dying of dropsy

1. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

2. (1789-1851), American novelist, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, on the 15th of September
1789. Reared in the wild country round Otsego Lake, N.Y., on the yet unsettled estates of his father,
a judge and member of Congress, he was sent to school at Albany and at New Haven, and entered
Yale College in his fourteenth year, remaining for some time the youngest student on the rolls.
Three years afterwards he joined the United States navy; but after making a voyage or two in a
merchant vessel, to perfect himself in seamanship, and obtaining his lieutenancy, he married and
resigned his commission (1811). He settled in Westchester county, N.Y., the "Neutral Ground" of
his earliest American romance, and produced anonymously (1820) his first book, Precaution, a
novel of the fashionable school. This was followed (1821) by The Spy, which was very successful at
the date of issue; The Pioneers (1823), the first of the "Leatherstocking" series; and The Pilot
(1824), a bold and dashing sea-story. The next was Lionel Lincoln (1825), a feeble and unattractive
work; and this was succeeded in 1826 by the famous Last of the Mohicans, a book that is often
quoted as its author's masterpiece. Quitting America for Europe he published at Paris The Prairie
(1826), the best of his books in nearly all respects, and The Red Rover, (1828), by no means his
worst.
At this period the unequal and uncertain talent of Cooper would seem to have been at its best. These
excellent novels were, however, succeeded by one very inferior, The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (1829);
by The Notions of a Travelling Bachelor (1828), an uninteresting book; and by The Waterwitch
(1830), one of the poorest of his many sea-stories. In 1830 he entered the lists as a party writer,
defending in a series of letters to the National, a Parisian journal, the United States against a string
of charges brought against them by the Revue Britannique; and 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. This opportunity of making a political confession of faith appears
not only to have fortified him in his own convictions, but to have inspired him with the idea of
imposing them on the public through the medium of his art. His next three novels, The Bravo
(1831), The Heidenmauer (1832) and The Headsman: or the Abbaye of Vigneron (1833), were
designed to exalt the people at the expense of the aristocracy. Of these the first is by no means a bad
story, but the others are among the dullest ever written; all were widely read on both sides of the
Atlantic.
In 1833 Cooper returned to America, and immediately published A Letter to my Countrymen, in
which he gave his own version of the controversy he had been engaged in, and passed some sharp
censure on his compatriots for their share in it. This attack he followed up with The Monikins
(1835) and The American Democrat (1835); with several sets of notes on his travels and
experiences in Europe, among which may be remarked his England (1837), in three volumes, a
burst of vanity and illtemper; and with Homeward Bound, and Home as Found (1838), noticeable as
containing a highly idealized portrait of himself. All these books tended to increase the ill-feeling
between author and public; the Whig press was virulent and scandalous in its comments, and
Cooper plunged into a series of actions for libel. Victorious in all of them, he returned to his old
occupation with something of his old vigour and success. A History of the Navy of the United States
(1839), supplemented (1846) by a set of Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers, was
succeeded by The Pathfinder (1840), a good "Leatherstocking" novel; by Mercedes of Castile
(1840); The Deerslayer (1841); by The Two Admirals and by Wing and Wing (1842); by
Wyandotte, The History of a Pocket Handkerchief, and Ned Myers (1843); and by Afloat and
Ashore, or the Adventures of Miles Wallingford (1844). From pure fiction, however, he turned again
to the combination of art and controversy in which he had achieved distinction, and in the two
Littlepage Manuscripts (1845-1846) he fought with a great deal of vigour. His next novel was The
Crater, or Vulcan's Peak (1847), in which he attempted to introduce supernatural machinery with
indifferent success; and this was succeeded by Oak Openings and Jack Tier (1848), the latter a
curious rifacimento 'of' The Red Rover; by The Sea Lions (1849); and finally by The Ways of the
Hour (1850), another novel with a purpose, and his last book. He died of dropsy on the 14th of
September 1851 at Cooperstown, New York. His daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper (1813-1894),
was known as an author and philanthropist.