Cooper, JAMES FENIMORE

Cooper, JAMES FENIMORE, an American novelist, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789. His father, a man of Copyright 1889 in U.S. wealth and Federalist member of Congress, was of Quaker descent. by J. B. Lippincott Company. In 1790 the family removed to Cooperstown, New York, then in a wild frontier region of great natural beauty. Cooper entered Yale College in 1802, a boy of thirteen. After remaining there three years, he was dismissed for some minor act of alleged misconduct. In 1806 he shipped as a common sailor, and in 1808 entered the navy as a midshipman. He rose to the rank of a lieutenant, but in 1811 resigned his commission, and married Susan, a sister of Bishop De Lancey of New York. His first novel, Precaution (1819), was a failure; and the thirty-two tales which followed it were of extremely unequal quality. Among those which had signal merit we may name The Spy (1821), The Pilot (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1826), The Red Rover (1831), The Bravo (1831), The Pathfinder (1840), The Deerslayer (1841), The Two Admirals (1842), Wing-and-Wing (1842), and Satanstoe (1845). His other writings include a meritorious Naval History of the United States (1839; abridged edition, 1841), and Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers (1846). His works of fiction have long enjoyed great popularity; and his best productions, in spite of conspicuous faults, well deserve all the favour they have received. His sea-tales and stories of frontier life are in all respects his best. Cooper's descriptive talents were of very high order; and some of his characters, such as 'Natty Bumppo,' 'Long Tom Coffin,' 'Birch,' 'The Big Serpent,' and especially 'Leather-Stocking,' are drawn with as much strength and life as almost any in the whole range of fiction. The peace of many of the later years of his life was much disturbed by literary and newspaper controversies and actions for libel, in nearly all of which he was successful. He conducted his own lawsuits, and usually pleaded his own cases with admirable tact and ability. One good result of these suits was to put upon the newspaper press of his own time and country some degree of restraint from the scandalously savage and virulent freedom of speech which then prevailed. On either side of the Atlantic Cooper's own severity of language won him no small amount of personal unpopularity; yet no man loved his own country better than he; and his high regard for the nobler side of the English character, and his appreciation of the grand achievements of British history, found frequent expression in his writings. These writings, other than the best of his novels, contained much to excite opposition, and they brought upon him, not altogether undeservedly, the reputation of being a proud, contentious, and somewhat wrong-headed man; yet there was in his real character much sweetness, as well as great strength, purity and dignity, and unqualified honesty. His pride was large, but it was not mixed with personal vanity. It has been well said that his faults were those of temper and judgment, rather than of character. He died at Cooperstown, September 14, 1851. The best biography is by Lounsbury (1882).