Works. Cooper, James Fenimore: Brief Biography, Leatherstocking Pentalogy Books

COOPER James Fenimore(1789-1851), American writer. Combined elements of enlightenment and romanticism. Historical and adventure novels about the War of Independence in the North. America, the era of the frontier, sea voyages ("Spy", 1821; pentalogy about the Leather Stocking, including "The Last of the Mohicans", 1826, "Deerslayer", 1841; "Pilot", 1823). Socio-political satire (the novel The Monikins, 1835) and journalism (the pamphlet treatise The American Democrat, 1838).
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COOPER (Cooper) James Fenimore (September 15, 1789, Burlington, New Jersey - September 14, 1851, Cooperstown, New York), American writer.
First steps in literature
The author of 33 novels, Fenimore Cooper became the first American writer who was unconditionally and widely recognized by the cultural environment of the Old World, including Russia. Balzac, reading his novels, by his own admission, growled with pleasure. Thackeray put Cooper above Walter Scott, repeating in this case the reviews of Lermontov and Belinsky, who generally likened him to Cervantes and even Homer. Pushkin noted Cooper's rich poetic imagination.
He took up professional literary activity relatively late, already at the age of 30, and in general, as if by accident. If you believe the legends that inevitably surround the life of a major personality, he wrote his first novel (Precaution, 1820) in a dispute with his wife. And before that, the biography developed quite routinely. The son of a landowner who became rich during the years of the struggle for independence, who managed to become a judge and then a congressman, James Fenimore Cooper grew up on the shores of Lake Otsego, a hundred miles northwest of New York, where at that time the "frontier" - the concept in The New World is not only geographical, but to a large extent socio-psychological - between the already developed territories and the wild, pristine lands of the natives. Thus, from an early age, he became a living witness to the dramatic, if not bloody, growth of American civilization, cutting its way further and further west. The heroes of his future books - pioneer squatters, Indians, farmers who suddenly became large planters, he knew firsthand. In 1803, at the age of 14, Cooper entered Yale University, from where, however, he was expelled for some disciplinary offenses. This was followed by a seven-year service in the navy - first merchant, then military. Cooper and further, having already made a big name for himself as a writer, did not leave practical activity. In the years 1826-1833 he served as the American consul in Lyon, however, rather nominally. In any case, during these years he traveled a considerable part of Europe, settling for a long time, in addition to France, in England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In the summer of 1828 he was going to Russia, but this plan was never to be realized. All this colorful life experience, one way or another, was reflected in his work, however, with a different measure of artistic persuasiveness.
Natty Bumpo
Cooper owes his worldwide fame not to the so-called land rent trilogy (The Devil's Finger, 1845, The Surveyor, 1845, The Redskins, 1846), where old barons, landed aristocrats, are opposed to greedy businessmen who are not shackled by any moral prohibitions, and not another trilogy inspired by the legends and reality of the European Middle Ages (“Bravo”, 1831, “Heidenmauer”, 1832, “The Executioner”, 1833), and not numerous marine novels (“The Red Corsair”, 1828, “The Sea Sorceress”, 1830 , etc.), and even more so not satires, like "Monicons" (1835), as well as two journalistic novels adjoining them in terms of problems, "Home" (1838) and "House" (1838). This is generally a topical debate on domestic American topics, the writer's response to critics who accused him of a lack of patriotism, which really should have hurt him painfully - after all, The Spy (1821) was left behind - a clearly patriotic novel from the time of the American Revolution. "Monikins" are even compared with "Gulliver's Travels", but Cooper clearly lacks neither Swift's imagination, nor Swift's wit, a tendency that kills all artistry is too clearly visible here. In general, oddly enough, Cooper more successfully resisted his enemies not as a writer, but simply as a citizen who, on occasion, could apply to the courts. Indeed, he won more than one process, defending his honor and dignity in court from illegible newspaper pamphleteers and even fellow countrymen, who decided at a meeting to withdraw his books from the library of his native Cooperstown. The reputation of Cooper, a classic of national and world literature, is firmly based on the pentalogy of Natty Bumpo - Leather Stocking (it is called, however, in different ways - St. John's Wort, Hawkeye, Pathfinder, Long Carbine). With all the cursiveness of the author, the work on this work stretched out, although with long breaks, for seventeen years. Against a rich historical background, it traces the fate of a man who paves the paths and highways of American civilization and at the same time tragically experiences the great moral costs of this path. As Gorky astutely noted in his time, Cooper's hero "unconsciously served the great cause ... the spread of material culture in the country of wild people and - turned out to be unable to live in the conditions of this culture ...".
Pentalogy
The sequence of events in this first epic on American soil is broken. In the novel The Pioneers (1823), which opens it, the action takes place in 1793, and Natti Bumpo appears as a hunter already declining in his life, who does not understand the language and customs of modern times. In the next novel in the cycle, The Last of the Mohicans (1826), the action is moved back forty years. Behind him - "Prairie" (1827), chronologically directly adjacent to the "Pioneers". On the pages of this novel, the hero dies, but continues to live in the creative imagination of the author, and after many years he returns to the years of his youth. The novels Pathfinder (1840) and Deerslayer (1841) present pure pastoral, unalloyed poetry, which the author discovers in human types, and mainly in the very appearance of virgin nature, still almost untouched by the colonist's axe. As Belinsky wrote, "Cooper cannot be surpassed when he introduces you to the beauties of American nature."
In the critical essay Enlightenment and Literature in America (1828), in the form of a letter to the fictitious abbot Giromachi, Cooper complained that the printer in America appeared before the writer, while the romantic writer was deprived of chronicles and dark traditions. He himself made up for this deficiency. Under his pen, the characters and manners of the frontier acquire an inexpressible poetic charm. Of course, Pushkin was right when he noted in the article "John Tanner" that Cooper's Indians are fanned with a romantic veil that deprives them of pronounced individual properties. But the novelist, it seems, did not strive for the accuracy of the portrait, preferring poetic fiction to the truth of the fact, which, by the way, Mark Twain later wrote ironically in the famous pamphlet "The Literary Sins of Fenimore Cooper."
Nevertheless, he felt obligations to historical reality, which he himself spoke about in the preface to The Pioneers. The acute internal conflict between a lofty dream and reality, between nature, embodying the highest truth, and progress is a conflict of a characteristically romantic nature and constitutes the main dramatic interest of the pentalogy.
With piercing sharpness, this conflict reveals itself in the pages of "Leather Stocking", clearly the most powerful thing in the pentalogy, and in the entire legacy of Cooper. Having placed one of the episodes of the so-called Seven Years' War (1757-1763) between the British and French over possessions in Canada at the center of the narrative, the author leads it swiftly, saturates it with a mass of adventures, partly of a detective nature, which made the novel a favorite children's reading for many generations. But this is not children's literature.
Chingachgook
Perhaps that is why the images of the Indians, in this case Chingachgook, one of the two main characters of the novel, turned out to be lyrically blurry for Cooper, because the common concepts were more important for him - tribe, clan, history with its mythology, way of life, language. It is this powerful layer of human culture, which is based on kinship to nature, that is leaving, as evidenced by the death of Chingachgook's son Uncas, the last of the Mohicans. This loss is catastrophic. But it is not hopeless, which is generally not characteristic of American romanticism. Cooper translates the tragedy into a mythological plane, and the myth, in fact, does not know a clear boundary between life and death, it is not for nothing that Leather Stocking, also not just a person, but the hero of a myth - a myth of early American history, solemnly and confidently says that the young man Uncas leaves only for time.
Writer's Pain
Man before the court of nature is the inner theme of The Last of the Moquigans. It is not given to a person to reach out to her greatness, albeit sometimes unkind, but he is constantly forced to solve this unsolvable task. Everything else - the fights of the Indians with the pale-faced, the battles of the British with the French, colorful clothes, ritual dances, ambushes, caves, etc. - this is just the entourage.
It was painful for Cooper to see how the root America, which is embodied by his beloved hero, was leaving before our eyes, being replaced by a completely different America, where speculators and rogues rule the ball. That is probably why the writer once dropped with bitterness: "I parted ways with my country." But over time, it became clear that contemporaries-compatriots, who reproached the writer for anti-patriotic moods, did not notice, the discrepancy is a form of moral self-esteem, and longing for the departed is a secret faith in a continuation that has no end.

James Fenimore-Cooper

Pathfinder
St. John's wort
Last of the Mohicans
Pioneers
Spy
Pilot
sea ​​sorceress
Prairie
Lionel Lincoln or the Siege of Boston
Littlepage family
Miles Wallingford
Glades in oak forests
Executioner
Vish-Ton-Vish Valley
At sea and on land
Crater
Wyandotte or House on the Hill
Two admirals
Bravo
Mercedes from Castile
Red Corsair
sea ​​lions
Monikins

Books and articles by year
1820 - composes for daughters a traditional novel of manners "Precaution" (Precaution).
1821 The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground is a historical novel based on local lore. The novel poeticizes the era of the American Revolution and its ordinary heroes. "Spy" receives international recognition. Cooper moved with his family to New York, where he soon became a prominent literary figure and leader of writers who stood up for the national identity of American literature.
1823 - the first novel is published, later the fourth part of the Pentalogy about the Leather Stocking - The Pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna.
short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
novel "The Pilot" (The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea), the first of Cooper's many works about adventures at sea.
1825 - the novel "Lionel Lincoln, or the Siege of Boston" (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).
1826 - the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo, the most popular novel by Cooper, whose title has become a household name - "The Last of the Mohicans" (The Last of the Mohicans).
1827 - the fifth part of the pentalogy novel "Steppes", otherwise "The Prairie" (The Prairie).
1828 - marine novel "The Red Corsair" (The Red Rover).
Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829 - the novel "Valley of Wish-ton-Wish" (The wept of Wish-ton-Wish), dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.
1830 - a fantastic story of the eponymous brigantine "Sea Witch" (The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas).
Letter to General Lafayette politics
1831 - the first part of a trilogy from the history of European feudalism "Bravo, Or In Venice" (The bravo) - a novel from the distant past of Venice.
1832 - the second part of the trilogy "Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines" (The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine) - a historical novel from the time of the early Reformation in Germany.
short stories (No Steamboats)
1833 - the third part of the trilogy "The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons" - a legend of the XVIII century. about the hereditary executioners of the Swiss canton of Bern.
1834 — (A Letter to His Countrymen)
1835 - criticism of American reality in the political allegory "The Monikins" (The Monikins), written in the tradition of educational allegorism and satire by J. Swift.
1836 — memoir (The Eclipse)
Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland (Sketches of Switzerland)
Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine
A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland
1837 — Gleanings in Europe: France travel
Gleanings in Europe: England travel
1838 - pamphlet "The American Democrat" (The American Democrat: or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America).
Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel
The Chronicles of Cooperstown
Hommeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound
1839 - "The History of the Navy of the United States of America", testifying to the excellent command of the material and love for navigation.
old ironsides
1840 - "The Pathfinder, or the Lake-Sea" or "The Pathfinder, or The inland sea" - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo
novel about the discovery of America by Columbus "Mercedes of Castile" (Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay).
1841 - Deerslayer: or The First Warpath - the first part of the pentalogy.
1842 - the novel "The two admirals" (The two admirals), telling an episode from the history of the British fleet, waging war with France in 1745
a novel about French privateering, Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet.
1843 - the novel Wyandotte: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale about the American Revolution in the backcountry of America.
Richard Dale
biography (Ned Myers: or Life before the Mast)
(Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief or Le Mouchoir: An Autobiographical Romance or The French Governess: or The Embroidered Handkerchief or Die franzosischer Erzieheren: oder das gestickte Taschentuch)
1844 - Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale novel
and its sequel "Miles Wallingford" (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the protagonist has autobiographical features.
Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c.
1845 - two parts of the "trilogy in defense of land rent": "Satanstow" (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony) and "The Surveyor" (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).
1846 - the third part of the trilogy - the novel "The Redskins" (The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts). In this trilogy, Cooper portrays three generations of landowners (from the mid-18th century to the struggle against land rent in the 1840s). Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography
1847 - the pessimism of the late Cooper is expressed in the utopia "The Crater" (The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific), which is an allegorical history of the United States.
1848 - the novel The Oak Grove or The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter - from the history of the Anglo-American War of 1812
Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
1849 - Cooper's latest marine novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, about a shipwreck that befell seal hunters in the ice of Antarctica.
1850 Cooper's latest book, The Ways of the Hour, is a social novel about American judiciary.
play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), a satirization of socialism
1851 - short story (The Lake Gun)
(New York: or The Towns of Manhattan) is an unfinished work on the history of the city of New York.

Author of 33 novels. His style combined elements of romanticism and enlightenment. For a long time, Cooper's work was the personification of American adventure literature. Of course, similar works were written before him. But Fenimore became the first writer to be recognized by a European audience. And his novels have firmly entered the circle of interests of a huge number of children. This article will present a brief biography of the writer, as well as describe his key works.

Childhood

James Fenimore Cooper was born in 1789 in Burlington, New Jersey. The boy's father was a large landowner. The childhood of the future writer passed in the village of Cooperstown, located in the state of New York, on the lake. He was so named after his father James. Of course, the origin left its mark on the formation of the political views of the hero of this article. Fenimore preferred the way of life of "country gentlemen" and remained an adherent of large landownership. And he connected democratic land reforms only with rampant demagogy and bourgeois money-grubbing.

Study and travel

First, Cooper James Fenimore was educated at a local school, and then entered Yale College. After graduation, the young man had no desire to continue his studies. Seventeen-year-old James became a sailor in the merchant navy and later in the navy. The future writer crossed the Atlantic Ocean, traveled a lot. Fenimore also studied the Great Lakes region well, where the action of his works will soon unfold. In those years, he accumulated a lot of material for his literary work in the form of a variety of life experiences.

Carier start

In 1810, after his father's funeral, Cooper James Fenimore married and settled with his family in the small town of Scarsdale. Ten years later, he wrote his first novel called "Precaution". James later recalled that he created this work "on a bet." Fenimore's wife was fond of. Therefore, the hero of this article half-jokingly, half-seriously took up writing such a book.

"Spy"

The War of Independence was a topic that James Fenimore Cooper was very interested in at the time. The Spy, written by him in 1821, was entirely devoted to this problem. The patriotic novel brought the author great fame. It can be said that with this work, Cooper filled the void that had formed in national literature and showed the guidelines for its future development. From that moment on, Fenimore decided to devote himself entirely to literary creativity. In the next six years, he wrote several more novels, including three works that were included in the future Leather Stocking pentalogy. But we will talk about them separately.

Europe

In 1826, James Fenimore Cooper, whose books were already quite popular, went to Europe. He lived for a long time in Italy, France. The writer also traveled to other countries. New impressions forced him to turn to the history of both the Old and New Worlds. In Europe, the hero of this article wrote two marine novels ("Sea Witch", "Red Corsair") and a trilogy about the Middle Ages ("The Executioner", "Heidenmauer", "Bravo").

Return to America

Seven years later, Cooper James Fenimore came home. During his absence, America has changed a lot. The heroic time of the revolution was in the past, and the principles were forgotten. In the United States, a period of industrial revolution began, which destroyed the remnants of patriarchy both in human relations and in life. "Great moral eclipse" - so Cooper dubbed the disease that has penetrated American society. Money has become the highest interest and priority for people.

A call to fellow citizens

James Fenimore Cooper, whose books were known far beyond America, decided to try to "reason" his fellow citizens. He still believed in the advantages of the socio-political system of his own country, considering bad phenomena superficial, external perversion of initially healthy and reasonable foundations. And Fenimore published Letters to Compatriots. In them, he called for a rise in the fight against the "distortions" that had appeared.

But it didn't end with success. On the contrary, much secret slander and open hatred fell upon James. Bourgeois America did not ignore his call. She accused Fenimore of arrogance, quarrelsomeness, lack of patriotism and lack of literary talent. After that, the writer retired to Cooperstown. There he continued to create journalistic works and novels.

The last period of creativity

During this period of time, James Fenimore Cooper, whose complete works are now in almost any library, completed the last two novels of the Leather Stocking pentalogy ("Deerslayer", "Pathfinder"). In 1835, he published the satirical novel The Monokins about the naked vices of the socio-political system in the United States and England. In the book, they are bred under the names Low-jump and High-jump. Also noteworthy is his trilogy on land rent ("Surveyor", "Devil's Finger", "Redskins"), published in the forties. In ideological and artistic terms, Cooper's latest works are very unequal. In addition to criticizing the bourgeois system, they contain components of a conservative utopia that give readers false ideas about the "landed aristocracy". But, despite this, the writer always adhered to critical anti-bourgeois positions.

Leather Stocking Pentalogy

This series of books is the pinnacle of Cooper's work. It includes five novels: The Pioneers, The Prairies, The Last of the Mohicans, Deerslayer, and The Pathfinder. All of them are united by the image of the main character named Nathaniel Bumpo. He is a hunter with many nicknames: Long Carbine, Leatherstocking, Hawkeye, Tracker, Deerslayer.

The pentalogy represents the whole life of Bampo - from youth to death. But the stages of Nathaniel's life do not coincide with the order in which the novels are written. James Fenimore Cooper, whose collected works are available to all admirers of his work, began to describe the life of Bumpo from an advanced age. The epic continued with a story about Natty's mature age, then there was old age. And only after a thirteen-year break, Cooper again took up the story of the Leather Stocking and described his youth. Below we list the works of the pentalogy in the order of the main character's growing up.

"St. John's wort"

Here Nathaniel Bumpo is in his early twenties. The young man's enemies are the Indians from the Huron tribe. Fighting them, Natty meets Chingachgook on his way. With this Indian from the Mohican tribe, Bumpo will make friends and will maintain relations until the end of his life. The situation in the work is complicated by the fact that Natty's white allies are unfair and cruel to foreign people. They themselves provoke bloodshed and violence. Dramatic adventures - captivity, escape, battles, ambushes - unfold against the backdrop of a very picturesque nature - the wooded shores of the Shimmering Lake and its mirror-like surface.

"Last of the Mohicans"

Perhaps Fenimore's most famous novel. Here the antipode of Bampo is the insidious and cruel leader Magua. He kidnapped Alice and Cora, the daughters of Colonel Munro. Bumpo led a small detachment and went to free the captives. Natty also accompanies Chingachgook along with her son Uncas. The latter is in love with one of the kidnapped girls (Cora), although Cooper does not really develop this line. Chingachgook's son dies in battle while trying to save his beloved. The novel ends with the funeral scene of Cora and Uncas (the last of the Mohicans). After Chingachgook and Natty go on new journeys.

Pathfinder

The plot of this novel is based on the Anglo-French war of 1750-1760. Its members try to trick or bribe the Indians to their side. Natty and Chingachgook fight to help their brethren. However, Cooper, through Bumpo, sharply condemns the war unleashed by the colonialists. He emphasizes the senselessness of the death in this battle of both Indians and whites. A significant place in the work is given to the lyrical line. Leatherstocking is in love with Mabel Dunham. The girl appreciates the nobility and courage of a scout, but still goes to Jasper, who is close to her in character and age. Frustrated, Natty leaves for the west.

"Pioneers"

This is the most problematic novel ever written by James Fenimore Cooper. "Pioneers" describes the life of Leatherstocking at the age of seventy. But despite this, Bumpo has not yet lost his vigilance, and his hand is still firm. Chingachgook is still nearby, only from a mighty and wise leader he turned into a drunken decrepit old man. Both heroes are in the village of colonists, where the laws of a "civilized" society apply. The central conflict of the novel lies in the opposition of far-fetched social orders and natural laws of nature. At the end of the novel, Chingachgook dies. Bumpo leaves the settlement and hides in the forest.

"Prairie"

The final part of the pentalogy written by James Fenimore Cooper. "Prairie" tells the story of Nathaniel's life in old age. Bumpo has made new friends. But now he helps them not with a well-aimed shot, but with great life experience, the ability to talk with a stern Indian leader and hide from a natural disaster. Natty and his friends confront the Bush family and the Sioux Indians. But the adventurous plot ends quite well - a double wedding. At the end of the work, a heartfelt and solemn scene of the last moments of Bampo's life and his death is described.

Conclusion

James Fenimore Cooper, whose biography was presented above, left behind an extensive literary heritage. He wrote 33 novels, as well as several volumes of travel writing, journalism, historical research and pamphlets. Cooper played a huge role in the development of the American novel, inventing several of its subgenres: utopian, satiric-fiction, social, nautical, historical. The writer's works were characterized by an epic reflection of the world. This is what contributed to the unification of a number of his novels into cycles: a dilogy, a trilogy, a pentalogy.

In his work, James Fenimore Cooper covered three main themes: frontier life, the sea, and the Revolutionary War. This choice reveals the romantic basis of his method. To American society, overwhelmed by the thirst for profit, he opposes the freedom of the sea element and soldier's heroism. This gap between reality and the romantic ideal is at the heart of the artistic and ideological design of any work by Cooper.

James Fenimore Cooper is an American novelist, the first writer of the New World, whose work was recognized by the Old World and became a powerful stimulus for the further development of the American novel.

His homeland was Burlington (New Jersey), where he was born on September 15, 1789 in a family headed by a judge, congressman, large landowner. He became the founder of the village of Cooperstown in the state of New York, which quickly turned into a small town. There, James Fenimore was educated at a local school, and, as a 14-year-old teenager, became a student at Yale University. It was not possible to get a higher education, because. for violations of discipline, Cooper was expelled from the alma mater.

During 1806-1811. the future writer served in the merchant, later in the navy. In particular, he happened to participate in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario. The knowledge and impressions gained subsequently helped him to please the public with excellent descriptions of the lake in his works.

In 1811, Cooper became a family man, his wife was a Frenchwoman, Delana. It was through a chance dispute with her that, as legend has it, James Fenimore tried himself as a man of letters. The reason was allegedly the phrase he dropped while reading aloud someone's novel, that it is better to write easily. As a result, in just a few weeks, the novel "Precaution" was written, which takes place in England. It happened in 1820. The debut went unnoticed by the public. But already in 1821, The Spy, or The Tale of No Man's Land was published, romanticizing the period of the American Revolution and the struggle for national independence, and the author became famous not only at home, but also in European countries.

Written in subsequent years, the cycle of novels The Pioneers, or Origins of the Sasquianna (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), Pathfinder, or Lake-Sea (1840), St. John's Wort, or the First warpath" (1841), dedicated to the American Indians and their relations with Europeans, glorified James Fenimore Cooper throughout the world. The somewhat idealized image of the hunter Natty Bumpo, the equally interesting images of Chingachgook and some other "children of nature" quickly aroused universal sympathy. The success of the series of novels was enormous, and even the harsh British critics, who called him the American Walter Scott, were forced to acknowledge him.

Even after becoming a famous writer, J.F. Cooper was not exclusively engaged in literature. In 1826-1833. his biography is associated with a large-scale journey across the European continent as an American consul in French Lyon (the position was rather nominal than requiring active work). Cooper visited not only France, but also Germany, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy.

Gained fame and so-called. marine novels, in particular, "The Pilot" (1823), "Red Corsair" (1828), "Sea Witch" (1830), "Mercedes from Castile" (1840). There is in the creative heritage of J.F. Cooper works of a historical, political, journalistic nature. His "History of the American Navy," published in 1839, distinguished by its desire for impartiality, turned both the Americans and the British against him. In particular, the residents of Cooperstown decided to remove all the books of the famous countryman from the local library. Litigation with them, with the journalistic fraternity, took a lot of Cooper's strength and health in the last years of his life. He died on September 14, 1851, the cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver.

James Fenimore Cooper. Born September 15, 1789 in Burlington, USA - died September 14, 1851 in Cooperstown, USA. American novelist and satirist Classic adventure literature.

Shortly after the birth of Fenimore, his father, Judge William Cooper, a fairly wealthy landowner, moved to the state of New York and founded the village of Cooperstown there, which turned into a town. After receiving his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but, without completing the course, he entered the naval service (1806-1811) and was assigned to build a military ship on Lake Ontario.

To this circumstance we owe the wonderful descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario.

In 1811, Cooper married a Frenchwoman, Susan Augusta Delancey, who came from a family sympathetic to England during the Revolutionary War; her influence explains the relatively mild comments about the British and the English government that are found in Cooper's early novels. Chance made him a writer. Reading a novel aloud to his wife one day, Cooper remarked that it was easy to write better. His wife took him at his word, and in order not to seem like a braggart, he wrote his first novel Precaution (Precaution; 1820) in a few weeks.

Assuming that, in view of the already begun competition between English and American authors, English criticism would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name for the first novel, Precaution (1820), and transferred the action of this novel to England. The latter circumstance could only damage the book, which revealed the author's poor knowledge of English life and caused very unfavorable reviews of English criticism.

Cooper's second novel, already from American life, was the famous "The Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground" ("The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground", 1821), which had a huge success not only in America but also in Europe.

Then Cooper wrote a whole series of novels from American life (The Pioneers, or At the Source of the Susquihanna, 1823; The Last of the Mohicans, 1826; The Steppes, otherwise The Prairie, 1827; 1840; “The Deer Hunter”, otherwise “Deerslayer, or the First Warpath”, 1841), where he depicted the wars of the newcomers-Europeans among themselves, in which they involved the American Indians, forcing the tribes to fight against each other. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natti (Nathanael) Bumpo, acting under various names (St. Idealized, although with subtle humor and satire, usually accessible only to an adult reader, are not only this representative of European civilization in Cooper, but also some of the Indians (Chingachgook, Uncas).

The success of this series of novels was so great that even English critics had to recognize Cooper's talent and called him American. In 1826, Cooper went to Europe, where he spent seven years. The fruit of this trip was several novels - "Bravo, or in Venice", "The Headsman", "Mercedes from Castile, or Journey to Cathay" (Mercedes of Castile), - which take place in Europe.

The mastery of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the brightness of the descriptions of nature, from which the primitive freshness of the virgin forests of America emanates, the relief in the depiction of the characters that stand before the reader as alive - these are the virtues of Cooper as a novelist. He also wrote the marine novels The Pilot, or Sea Story (1823) and The Red Corsair (1827).

Upon his return from Europe, Cooper wrote the political allegory Monikina (1835), five volumes of travel writing (1836-1838), several novels from American life (Satanstow; 1845 and others), the pamphlet The American Democrat (The American Democrat, 1838). In addition, he also wrote the "History of the United States Navy" ("History of the United States Navy", 1839). The desire for complete impartiality found in this work did not satisfy either his countrymen or the English; the controversy he provoked poisoned the last years of Cooper's life.

In the early 1840s, Cooper's novels were also very popular in Russia. The first translations into Russian were made by the children's writer A. O. Ishimova. In particular, the novel The Pathfinder (Russian translation of 1841), published in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, aroused great public interest, about which it was said that it was a Shakespearean drama in the form of a novel.

Adventure novels by James Fenimore Cooper were very popular in the USSR, their author was quickly recognized by his second, rare, name Fenimore. For example, in the film "The Secret of Fenimore", the third series of the children's television mini-series "Three Funny Shifts" in 1977 based on the stories of Yu. Yakovlev, it tells about a mysterious stranger named Fenimore, who comes to the boys' ward at night in a pioneer camp and tells amazing stories about Indians and aliens.

Bibliography of Fenimore Cooper:

1820 - "Precaution" (Precaution)
1821 - "The Spy, or The Tale of the Neutral Ground" (The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground)
1823 - short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
1823 - "The Pilot, or Maritime History" (The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea)
1825 - "Lionel Lincoln, or the Siege of Boston" (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston)
1826 - "The Last of the Mohicans" (The Last of the Mohicans)
1827 - "Steppes", otherwise "Prairie" (The Prairie)
1827 - "The Red Corsair" (The Red Rover)
1828 Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829 - The wept of Wish-ton-Wish
1830 - The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas
1830 - Letter to General Lafayette politics
1831 - "Bravo, or in Venice" (The bravo)
1832 - "Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines" (The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine)
1832 - short stories (No Steamboats)
1833 - The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons
1834 - A Letter to His Countrymen
1835 - The Monikins
1836 - memoirs (The Eclipse)
1836 - Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland (Sketches of Switzerland)
1836 - Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine
1836 - A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland
1837 - Gleanings in Europe: France travel
1837 - Gleanings in Europe: England travel
1838 - pamphlet "The American Democrat" (The American Democrat: or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America)
1838 - Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel
1838 - The Chronicles of Cooperstown
1838 - Hommeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
1838 - Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound
1839 - The History of the Navy of the United States of America
1839 - Old Ironsides
1840 - "The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario" or "The Pathfinder, or The inland sea"
1840 - "Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay"
1841 - The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath
1842 - "The two admirals" (The two admirals)
1842 - Wandering Light (Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet)
1843 - “Wyandotte, or the House on the Hill” (Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale)
1843-Richard Dale
1843 - biography (Ned Myers: or Life before the Mast)
1844 - "On the sea and on land" (Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale)
1844 - "Miles Wallingford" (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore)
1844 - Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c
1845 - "Satanstoe" (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony)
1845 - The Surveyor (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts)
1846 - "The Redskins" (The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts)
1846 - Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography
1847 - "The Crater, or the Peak of the Volcano" (The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific)
1848 - The Oak Grove or the Bee-Hunter
1848 - "Jack Tier, or the Florida Reefs" (Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs)
1849 - "The Sea Lions" (The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers)
1850 - "New trends" (The ways of the hour)
1850 - play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), satirization of socialism
1851 - short story The Lake Gun
1851 - New York: or The Towns of Manhattan (unfinished work on the history of the city of New York)