Cooper's novel written for a bet. Cooper, James Fenimore: short biography, books

T. Cole. Scene from the novel "The Last of the Mohicans"

Fenimore Cooper began his professional literary activity at the age of thirty. If you believe the legends, he wrote his first novel, “Precaution” (1820), as a bet with his wife. The son of a landowner who became rich during 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, about a hundred miles northwest of New York, where the “frontier” took place at that time. From a young age, he witnessed the growth of American civilization, cutting further and further west. He knew the heroes of his future books - pioneer squatters, Indians, farmers who became large planters - firsthand. In 1803, at the age of 14, Cooper entered Yale University, from where he was expelled for disciplinary offenses. This was followed by seven years of service in the navy - first in the merchant fleet, then in the military. Having already become famous in the writing field, Cooper did not give up practical activities. In 1826-1833, he served as American consul in Lyon, traveled through a considerable part of Europe, settling for a long time, in addition to France, in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Cooper owes his fame not to the trilogy about land rent (Devil's Finger, 1845, Land Surveyor, 1845, Redskins, 1846), where old landed aristocrats are opposed to greedy businessmen, not constrained by moral prohibitions, nor to another trilogy inspired by legends and the reality of the European Middle Ages (“Bravo”, 1831, “Heidenmauer”, 1832, “Executioner”, 1833), not numerous naval novels (“The Red Corsair”, 1828, “The Sea Sorceress”, 1830), not satires like “Monicons "(1835), as well as the two journalistic novels adjacent to them in terms of issues, “Home” (1838) and “At Home” (1838). This topical polemic on internal American topics, the writer’s response to critics who accused him of a lack of patriotism, which should have hurt the writer - after all, The Spy (1821) had already been written, a patriotic novel from the time of the American Revolution. "Monicin" was compared to "Gulliver's Travels", but Cooper lacked Swift's imagination and wit. Cooper more successfully confronted his enemies not as a writer, but as a citizen who, on occasion, could turn to the courts. He won more than one case, defending his honor and dignity in court from newspaper pamphleteers and even fellow countrymen, who decided at a meeting to remove his books from the library of his native Cooperstown. Cooper's reputation, a classic of national and world literature, rests firmly on the pentalogy of Natty Bumppo - Leather Stocking (he is also called St. John's Wort, Hawkeye, Pathfinder, Long Carbine). Despite all the author's cursive writing, work on this work lasted, although with long interruptions, for seventeen years. Against a rich historical background, it traces the fate of a man who paved the paths and highways of American civilization and at the same time tragically experienced the moral costs of this path. As Gorky astutely noted in his time, Cooper’s hero “unconsciously served the great cause... of spreading material culture in the country of savage people and turned out to be unable to live in the conditions of this culture...”.
The sequence of events in this epic, the first on American soil, is confused. In the opening novel, “The Pioneers” (1823), the action takes place in 1793, and Natty Bumppo appears as a hunter already approaching the end of his life, who does not understand the language and customs of new times. In the next novel in the series, “The Last of the Mohicans” (1826), the action moves forward forty years ago. Behind it is “Prairie” (1827), chronologically directly adjacent to “Pioneers”. On the pages of this novel, the hero dies, but in the author’s creative imagination he continues to live, and after many years he returns to the years of his youth. The novels “The Pathfinder” (1840) and “The St. John’s Wort” (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 ax. 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), couched in the form of a letter to the fictional Abbot Jiromachi, Cooper complained that the printer appeared in America before the writer, while the romantic writer was deprived of chronicles and dark legends. He himself compensated for this deficiency. Under his pen, the characters and customs of the frontier acquire an inexpressible poetic charm. Of course, Pushkin was right when he noted in the article “John Tenner” that Cooper’s Indians are covered with a romantic flair, depriving them of pronounced individual properties. But the novelist, it seems, did not strive for an accurate portrait, preferring poetic fiction to the truth of fact, which, by the way, Mark Twain later ironically wrote about in the famous pamphlet “The Literary Sins of Fenimore Cooper.”
Nevertheless, he felt an obligation to historical reality, as he himself spoke about in the preface to “Pioneers.” The acute internal conflict between a lofty dream and reality, between nature, which embodies 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 on the pages of Leatherstocking, clearly the most powerful thing both in the pentalogy and in Cooper’s entire legacy. Having placed at the center of the story one of the episodes of the so-called Seven Years' War (1757-1763) between the British and the French for possessions in Canada, the author conducts it rapidly, saturates it with a lot of adventures, partly of a detective nature, which has made the novel a favorite children's reading for many generations. But this is not children's literature.
Perhaps this is also why Cooper’s images of the Indians, in this case Chingachgook, one of the two main characters of the novel, turned out to be lyrically blurred, because more important than faces for him were general concepts - tribe, clan, history with its own mythology, way of life, language. It is this powerful layer of human culture, which is based on a family closeness to nature, that is disappearing, 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 not typical of American romanticism at all. Cooper translates the tragedy into a mythological plane, and 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.
Man before the court of nature - this is the internal theme of “The Last of the Mokigans.” It is not given to man to reach its greatness, even if it is sometimes unkind, but he is constantly forced to solve this unsolvable problem. Everything else - fights between Indians and pale-faced people, battles between the British and the French, colorful clothes, ritual dances, ambushes, caves - are just surroundings.
It was painful for Cooper to see how root America, embodied by his beloved hero, was leaving before his eyes, being replaced by a completely different America, where speculators and crooks ruled the roost. That is why the writer said with bitterness: “I have parted ways with my country.” But over time, it became clear what his contemporaries and compatriots did not notice, reproaching the writer for his anti-patriotic sentiments: divergence is a form of moral self-esteem, and longing for the past is a secret belief in a continuation that has no end.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was born into a wealthy family, studied at school and college, became a sailor, then a traveler, and after crossing the thirty-year mark, he wrote the novel “Precaution”, a year later - the novel “Spy” and gained fame.

There is no need to introduce Fenimore Cooper. Cooper is our childhood.

Back in the middle of the last century, people in Europe said that America was known only from Niagara Falls and from the stories of Washington Irving. Irving is only six years older than Cooper, and began to study literature only a year before him. So if Irving is the father of American literature, then Cooper is at least its uncle. He is, of course, a romantic, but a very unusual romantic, who happily found his theme.

Romantics often went to the distant past for plots, away from reality. Cooper, on the contrary, wrote about the present, about the exploration of America, about old hunters and brave Indians. And this present was written in such an amazing language that it still stuns boys - incorrigible romantics.

Nikolay Vnukov

Farmer from Otsego Lake

One evening in August 1819, the wealthy American landowner James Fenimore Cooper was sitting by the fireplace in his cozy living room and reading to his wife a new novel he had just received from England. It was a story, common in the literature of that time, of two lovers, on whose path many different obstacles arise, but ends in a happy marriage and an obligatory stern moral lesson at the end.

The logs were crackling in the fireplace, Fenimore's wife put her sewing on her knees and listened to the last pages of the book with a smile. Fenimore finished reading them quickly. Finally he slammed the volume shut and threw it on the floor.

Unbearable, right? It was like I'd eaten too much cornbread and molasses.

It’s really boring,” said the wife. “And you don’t believe anything.” This never happens in life.

You know, dear, I probably would have written much better.

You? - exclaimed the young woman. - But you are not a writer. To write books, you need talent.

Talent...” Fenimore repeated thoughtfully. “Who knows, maybe I have talent too.” After all, I have never tried it.

Try it!” his wife encouraged him.

Do you think it won't work?

“I’m sure,” she said. “You are a landowner, a planter, but not a writer.”

Yes, Fenimore Cooper was thirty years old, and he was a planter and landowner. He inherited the house and land - 4,000 hectares - from his father, Judge William Cooper. Fenimore raised sheep on the land, grew wheat and lived calmly and carefree, like any wealthy person. Behind him were three years of law school at the university, sailing as a sailor on a merchant ship, and serving in the navy as a midshipman on the brig Vesuvius.

He loved the sea. Water had been nearby since childhood - my father’s huge estate stood on the shores of the beautiful Lake Otsego. At the age of five he learned to swim, and at the age of eight he learned to shoot a gun. The forest was also nearby - it stood like an impenetrable wall along the shores of the lake. Just get further into the thicket and you could meet Indians from the Oneida or Onondaga tribes - the former owners of this land.

In 1809, when Fenimore was twenty years old, his father died. He was involved in politics, and politics brought him to an end. At one of the election rallies, my father argued with his political opponent. The argument turned into a fight. Judge William Cooper received such a blow to the bridge of his nose from his opponent that he died two days later. In America at that time, fights between political opponents were the most common thing.

In 1811, Fenimore received his share of his father's inheritance and married. The sea was finished. The midshipman of the navy turned into a large landowner.

His wife's words that he could not write a book better than the English writer hurt him.

You know, I’ll still try,” Fenimore said.

He not only wrote the novel “Precaution”, but even published it. Subsequently, he was ashamed of this book - it was completely imitative. However, writing captured him so much that he immediately began writing his second book.

In “Precaution,” I wrote about England, knowing it only from books and stories,” he told his wife. - Now I will try to create a purely American novel. I want to write about our recent war of independence and love for our country.

A year later, the novel “Spy” was born.

Fenimore Cooper became famous.

Indeed, The Spy was the first work in the States to tell the story of the struggle of the young American republic with the English metropolis. In this novel, Fenimore Cooper made the hero not an aristocrat, but a traveling merchant-peddler Harvey Birch.

Two years later, Cooper wrote a novel about settlers exploring the wild lands of the American continent west of the Atlantic coast - “Pioneers.”

The new book brought him worldwide fame. The landowner turned into a professional writer. Interestingly, Cooper's first maritime novel, The Pilot, was also born out of controversy. Cooper and his wife were invited to the wealthy New York book lover Charles Wilkes. New literature was discussed during lunch. The conversation was about Walter Scott and his book “The Pirate”.

Everyone was perplexed: Walter Scott was never a sailor. He was a judge and spent his free time from meetings either in his office over manuscripts or in social drawing rooms. How does he know the sea so well?

Yes, he doesn’t know the sea at all! - exclaimed Fenimore Cooper, leafing through the book. - The text contains at most a dozen nautical terms that can amaze a land person. And the sea scenes take up very little space. Sir Walter's talent as a storyteller helps him out. He so deftly inserts nautical words into the text that it seems as if he were writing a sea wolf.

That's it! - said Charles Wilkes. - If there were more scenes at sea, and the hero constantly rolled out booms, topmasts, sheets and jibs in his speech, the land reader would fall asleep over such pages. Sir Walter has delicate taste.

But I don’t believe in it! - said Fenimore. - It seems to me that a novel, the entire action of which will take place at sea and the heroes of which will speak only in the “maritime” language, can be no less exciting than any other.

For sailors, maybe, but not for us,” Wilkes said.

On the way home, Fenimore said to his wife:

I couldn't prove anything. I'll have to write a sea novel. This is the only way I will show what a sailor can achieve in this genre.

The argument over dinner ended with the creation of the first maritime novel in world literature.

Soon Cooper was appointed American consul to France, he went to Europe and lived there for seven years. He visited England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and met famous European writers, including Walter Scott. He wrote travel essays and novels from European life, which are now almost forgotten. There, in Europe, he finished the second book about his favorite hero - the free hunter of forests and prairies - St. John's Wort, or Leather Stocking.

Returning to America, he saw that the once virgin forests in the state of New York had thinned out under the axes of the settlers, and some had been completely burned out. That the remnants of the Indian tribes were either completely exterminated or are eking out a miserable existence. That an unbridled pursuit of money began in American society, which gave rise to cynicism, venality and hypocrisy.

And then Cooper decided to fight with his pen against what he considered disastrous for his country.

In addition to the novels about Leatherstocking “The Pathfinder” and “St. John’s Wort,” critical articles appeared from his pen one after another. They were so merciless that they were soon stopped being printed. And then his books began to be confiscated from libraries.

“So I parted ways with my country...” Cooper sadly admitted in one of his letters.

He died in 1851 in his native Cooperstown (an entire town grew up on the site of his father’s estate), leaving a huge number of novels for readers around the world. Many of them did not stand the test of time and were forgotten, but “Spy”, “Pilot” and five books about the Indians and the free forest hunter Nathaniel Bumpo - Leather Stocking - became classic works of world literature.

Balzac "roared with delight" when reading Cooper's novels. Lermontov found in them more depth and artistic value than in the novels of Walter Scott. Belinsky compared Cooper to Shakespeare. Gorky said that “the illiterate Bumpo is almost an allegorical figure, joining the ranks of those true friends of humanity whose sufferings and exploits so richly adorn our lives.”

Cooper's books are now known and loved by children and adults throughout our vast country. Because Honesty, Courage and Dedication, sung by the writer, always remain Honesty, Courage and Dedication in every corner of the globe where people live.

😉 Greetings to regular readers and guests! I hope the article “James Fenimore Cooper: biography, facts and video” will be of interest to literature lovers, students and schoolchildren.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) American citizen, native of Burlington, creator of exciting novels and adventure prose. Known for his work “The Last of the Mohicans” (1826).

He became the pioneer of a new genre, the “frontier novel,” or border novel. He also wrote the first historical novels in the United States describing adventures. The author’s literary works are still sold in antiquarian bookstores and on online publishing websites.

Biography of James Fenimore Cooper

James's father was active in politics, was a member of the US Congress, and a judge. He bore the name William Cooper, which had its roots in a noble family of English and Swedes. His father's wealth and influence allowed him to found Cooperstown, which eventually became a city.

While studying at school, James Cooper was not distinguished by exemplary behavior; he joked a lot, including at the expense of teachers. So, he once brought a live donkey to class. He was soon kicked out of school, and later his father sent him to be raised as a sailor.

However, Cooper passed the exams and entered higher education at Yale. He studied there for only one year, then went to serve in the navy as a midshipman, where he served for four years from 1806. He also took an active part in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario.

This is how the novel “Pathfinder” appeared, which describes in detail the picturesque landscapes of the coastal areas of this reservoir. In 1811, he tied the knot with the Frenchwoman Susan Auguste Delancey, who always spoke with sympathy about the British in the American struggle for independence.

It is thanks to her influence on Cooper that the British and the events of those historical years are so vividly reflected in the writer’s first works, very respectfully and not condemned. Subsequently, it was his wife who insisted that James leave the naval service.

A short time later, his father dies of a heart attack, and James remains the wealthy heir to his entire fortune.

According to legend, Cooper wrote his first work after an argument with his wife. One day they spent time reading a simple English novel, and James said that he himself could write a work just as good. Susan took him at his word. This is how “Precaution” appeared, published in 1820.

Cooper's work

It is interesting that James Fenimore Cooper hid his authorship of the novel “Precaution”, since the American authorities were not so loyal to the English government. But English critics also rejected the work because the events did not fully correspond to the actual history of England.

The novelism for the United States in Cooper's subsequent works was much better than his test novel. Thus, the second famous work, “Spy,” was published a year after “Precaution” and was inspired by devotion to the homeland and education of youth in the spirit of patriotism.

The work was greeted with great enthusiasm by American and European readers. The beginning of a new genre in the literature of the United States of America had been laid.

This was followed by texts with a detailed and fascinating description of the nature of America and its history. Cooper's well-deserved success was explained by the unusual theme of his works, the third part of which is devoted to sea voyages.

For Cooper's European admirers, his works gave more vivid emotions and experiences associated with the struggle for the independence of the American people than the events of those times in the Old World.

Works

Since 1823, for eighteen years, his works have been published one after another:

• "Pioneers";
• "Lincoln, or the Siege of Boston";
• "The Last of the Mohicans";
• "Steppes";
• "Pathfinder";
• "The Deer Hunter."

In recent years, after many years in the Old World, the writer returned to America and did not recognize it. Life has changed a lot. E. Jackson appeared, carrying out a broad democratization of the frontier novel, which Cooper did not like.

He was opposed to these vulgar ideas. But, he continued to write in his own style, which now seemed neutral and did not cause the same excitement among fans of the historical novel.

In the 30s of the nineteenth century, he was persecuted by representatives of American publications and moved to Cooperstown, where he died in September 1851 from cirrhosis of the liver. His History of New York remained unfinished.

Video

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James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was born into a wealthy family, studied at school and college, became a sailor, then a traveler, and after crossing the thirty-year mark, he wrote the novel “Precaution”, a year later - the novel “Spy” and gained fame.

There is no need to introduce Fenimore Cooper. Cooper is our childhood.

Back in the middle of the last century, people in Europe said that America was known only from Niagara Falls and from the stories of Washington Irving. Irving is only six years older than Cooper, and began to study literature only a year before him. So if Irving is the father of American literature, then Cooper is at least its uncle. He is, of course, a romantic, but a very unusual romantic, who happily found his theme.

Romantics often went to the distant past for plots, away from reality. Cooper, on the contrary, wrote about the present, about the exploration of America, about old hunters and brave Indians. And this present was written in such an amazing language that it still stuns boys - incorrigible romantics.

Nikolay Vnukov

Farmer from Otsego Lake

One evening in August 1819, the wealthy American landowner James Fenimore Cooper was sitting by the fireplace in his cozy living room and reading to his wife a new novel he had just received from England. It was a story, common in the literature of that time, of two lovers, on whose path many different obstacles arise, but ends in a happy marriage and an obligatory stern moral lesson at the end.

The logs were crackling in the fireplace, Fenimore's wife put her sewing on her knees and listened to the last pages of the book with a smile. Fenimore finished reading them quickly. Finally he slammed the volume shut and threw it on the floor.

Unbearable, right? It was like I'd eaten too much cornbread and molasses.

It’s really boring,” said the wife. “And you don’t believe anything.” This never happens in life.

You know, dear, I probably would have written much better.

You? - exclaimed the young woman. - But you are not a writer. To write books, you need talent.

Talent...” Fenimore repeated thoughtfully. “Who knows, maybe I have talent too.” After all, I have never tried it.

Try it!” his wife encouraged him.

Do you think it won't work?

“I’m sure,” she said. “You are a landowner, a planter, but not a writer.”

Yes, Fenimore Cooper was thirty years old, and he was a planter and landowner. He inherited the house and land - 4,000 hectares - from his father, Judge William Cooper. Fenimore raised sheep on the land, grew wheat and lived calmly and carefree, like any wealthy person. Behind him were three years of law school at the university, sailing as a sailor on a merchant ship, and serving in the navy as a midshipman on the brig Vesuvius.

He loved the sea. Water had been nearby since childhood - my father’s huge estate stood on the shores of the beautiful Lake Otsego. At the age of five he learned to swim, and at the age of eight he learned to shoot a gun. The forest was also nearby - it stood like an impenetrable wall along the shores of the lake. Just get further into the thicket and you could meet Indians from the Oneida or Onondaga tribes - the former owners of this land.

In 1809, when Fenimore was twenty years old, his father died. He was involved in politics, and politics brought him to an end. At one of the election rallies, my father argued with his political opponent. The argument turned into a fight. Judge William Cooper received such a blow to the bridge of his nose from his opponent that he died two days later. In America at that time, fights between political opponents were the most common thing.

In 1811, Fenimore received his share of his father's inheritance and married. The sea was finished. The midshipman of the navy turned into a large landowner.

His wife's words that he could not write a book better than the English writer hurt him.

You know, I’ll still try,” Fenimore said.

He not only wrote the novel “Precaution”, but even published it. Subsequently, he was ashamed of this book - it was completely imitative. However, writing captured him so much that he immediately began writing his second book.

In “Precaution,” I wrote about England, knowing it only from books and stories,” he told his wife. - Now I will try to create a purely American novel. I want to write about our recent war of independence and love for our country.

A year later, the novel “Spy” was born.

Fenimore Cooper became famous.

Indeed, The Spy was the first work in the States to tell the story of the struggle of the young American republic with the English metropolis. In this novel, Fenimore Cooper made the hero not an aristocrat, but a traveling merchant-peddler Harvey Birch.

Two years later, Cooper wrote a novel about settlers exploring the wild lands of the American continent west of the Atlantic coast - “Pioneers.”

The new book brought him worldwide fame. The landowner turned into a professional writer. Interestingly, Cooper's first maritime novel, The Pilot, was also born out of controversy. Cooper and his wife were invited to the wealthy New York book lover Charles Wilkes. New literature was discussed during lunch. The conversation was about Walter Scott and his book “The Pirate”.

Everyone was perplexed: Walter Scott was never a sailor. He was a judge and spent his free time from meetings either in his office over manuscripts or in social drawing rooms. How does he know the sea so well?

Yes, he doesn’t know the sea at all! - exclaimed Fenimore Cooper, leafing through the book. - The text contains at most a dozen nautical terms that can amaze a land person. And the sea scenes take up very little space. Sir Walter's talent as a storyteller helps him out. He so deftly inserts nautical words into the text that it seems as if he were writing a sea wolf.

That's it! - said Charles Wilkes. - If there were more scenes at sea, and the hero constantly rolled out booms, topmasts, sheets and jibs in his speech, the land reader would fall asleep over such pages. Sir Walter has delicate taste.

But I don’t believe in it! - said Fenimore. - It seems to me that a novel, the entire action of which will take place at sea and the heroes of which will speak only in the “maritime” language, can be no less exciting than any other.

For sailors, maybe, but not for us,” Wilkes said.

On the way home, Fenimore said to his wife:

I couldn't prove anything. I'll have to write a sea novel. This is the only way I will show what a sailor can achieve in this genre.

The argument over dinner ended with the creation of the first maritime novel in world literature.

Soon Cooper was appointed American consul to France, he went to Europe and lived there for seven years. He visited England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and met famous European writers, including Walter Scott. He wrote travel essays and novels from European life, which are now almost forgotten. There, in Europe, he finished the second book about his favorite hero - the free hunter of forests and prairies - St. John's Wort, or Leather Stocking.

Returning to America, he saw that the once virgin forests in the state of New York had thinned out under the axes of the settlers, and some had been completely burned out. That the remnants of the Indian tribes were either completely exterminated or are eking out a miserable existence. That an unbridled pursuit of money began in American society, which gave rise to cynicism, venality and hypocrisy.

And then Cooper decided to fight with his pen against what he considered disastrous for his country.

In addition to the novels about Leatherstocking “The Pathfinder” and “St. John’s Wort,” critical articles appeared from his pen one after another. They were so merciless that they were soon stopped being printed. And then his books began to be confiscated from libraries.

“So I parted ways with my country...” Cooper sadly admitted in one of his letters.

He died in 1851 in his native Cooperstown (an entire town grew up on the site of his father’s estate), leaving a huge number of novels for readers around the world. Many of them did not stand the test of time and were forgotten, but “Spy”, “Pilot” and five books about the Indians and the free forest hunter Nathaniel Bumpo - Leather Stocking - became classic works of world literature.

Balzac "roared with delight" when reading Cooper's novels. Lermontov found in them more depth and artistic value than in the novels of Walter Scott. Belinsky compared Cooper to Shakespeare. Gorky said that “the illiterate Bumpo is almost an allegorical figure, joining the ranks of those true friends of humanity whose sufferings and exploits so richly adorn our lives.”

Cooper's books are now known and loved by children and adults throughout our vast country. Because Honesty, Courage and Dedication, sung by the writer, always remain Honesty, Courage and Dedication in every corner of the globe where people live.

James Fenimore-Cooper

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

Books and articles by year
1820 - composes a traditional novel of morals, Precaution, for his daughters.
1821 is a historical novel, The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground, based on local legends. 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 advocated for the national identity of American literature.
1823 - the first novel is published, later the fourth part of the pentalogy about Leatherstocking - “The Pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna”.
short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
the novel "The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea", the first of Cooper's many works about adventures at sea.
1825 — novel “Lionel Lincoln, or The Siege of Boston” (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).
1826 - the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo, Cooper's most popular novel, the name of which has become a household name - “The Last of the Mohicans”.
1827 - the fifth part of the pentalogy novel “The Steppes”, otherwise “The Prairie”.
1828 — naval novel “The Red Corsair” (The Red Rover).
Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829 - the novel “The Valley of Wish-ton-Wish”, dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of the American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.
1830 — a fantastic story of the brigantine of the same name “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 “The 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 18th 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”, written in the tradition of educational allegorism and satire of J. Swift.
1836 — memoirs (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: or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America.”
Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel
The Chronicles of Cooperstown
Homeward 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 an excellent mastery of the material and love for navigation.
Old Ironsides
1840 — “The Pathfinder, or The Lake-Sea” (The Pathfinder, or The inland sea) - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo
a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus, Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay.
1841 - “The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath” - the first part of the pentalogy.
1842 - the novel “The Two Admirals”, telling an episode from the history of the British fleet leading the war with France in 1745
a novel about French privateering, “Will-and-Wisp” (Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet).
1843 - the novel “Wyandotte: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale” about the American Revolution in the remote corners 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 — novel “On Land and Sea” (Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale)
and its sequel “Miles Wallingford” (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the main character 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”: “Satanstoe” (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony) and “The Land Surveyor” (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).
1846 - the third part of the trilogy - the novel “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” (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 “Gleades in the Oak Groves, or the Bee-Hunter” (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 sea novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, is about a shipwreck that befalls seal hunters in the ice of Antarctica.
1850 Cooper's latest book, The Ways of the Hour, is a social novel about American legal proceedings.
play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), satirization of socialism
1851 - short story (The Lake Gun)
(New York: or The Towns of Manhattan) - an unfinished work on the history of New York City.