Cooper author biography

He worked so hard that in a few years he achieved a good rank in the American Navy. After inheriting a good fortune from his father at twenty, James married De Lancey, a noble French lady, in The couple enjoyed the bliss of life together and their marriage produced seven children. His wife and children became the driving force behind his writing career as he started writing fiction for them and did wonders in his life.

In his first attempt, he tried to outdo the English domestic approach of writing fiction by choosing limited themesmanners, and styles. However, his second attempt, The Spy, presents us with various subjectshistorical romanceand fictional models. 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. InCooper 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.

Influenced by the ideals of classical republicanismCooper 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 RousseauBurlamaquiand MontesquieuCooper's political ideas were both democratic, deriving from the consent of the governed, and liberal, concerned with the rights of the individual.

In the later s—despite his repudiation of authorship in "A Letter to My Countrymen"—he published Gleanings in Europefive 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.

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. He publicly announced his intentions to author such a historical work while abroad before departing for Europe in Mayduring 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. Cooper's historical account of the U. 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 inand concentrated on its research in the late s. His close association with the U. Navy and various officers, and his familiarity with naval life at sea provided him the cooper author biography 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.

Navy during that time. 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, year-old Philip Spencer, was the son of U. Secretary of War John C. 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 Erienoting that Cooper "flattered himself that his tract would 'finish' Mackenzie as a naval officer, which it certainly did not.

Inan old shipmate, Ned Myersre-entered Cooper's life. To cooper author biography him—and hopefully to cash in on the popularity of maritime biographies—Cooper wrote Myers's story which he published in as Ned Myers; or, A Life Before the Mastan account of a common seaman still of interest to naval historians. It was the history of the Navy ship USS Constitution and, after European and American Scenery Compared, was one of several posthumous publications of his writings.

The work was an account of the U. Navy in the early 19th cooper author biography, through the Mexican War. 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.

Cooper's writings of the s 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.

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,he published his History of the U. 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. 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 s.

They may be grouped into cooper author biography categories: Indian romances, maritime fiction, and political and social controversy—though the categories often overlap. The s began with the last two novels featuring Natty Bumppo, both critical and reader successes: The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer Wyandottehis last novel set in the Revolutionary War, followed in and Oak Openings in 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-- SatanstoeThe Chainbearerand The Redskins —dramatized issues of land ownership in response to renters in the s 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 Handkerchieffirst published in Graham's Magazine ina satire on contemporary nouveau riche.

In The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak he introduced supernatural machinery to show the decline of an ideal society in the South Seas when demagogues prevail. The Ways of the Hourhis last completed novel, portrayed a mysterious and independent young woman defending herself against criminal charges. Cooper spent the last years of his life back in Cooperstown.

He died on September 14,the day before his 62nd birthday. Cooper's wife Susan survived her husband only by a few months and was buried by his side at Cooperstown. 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 Daniel Webster gave a speech to the gathering while Washington Irving served as a co-chairman, along with William Cullen Bryantwho also gave an address which did much to restore Cooper's damaged reputation among American writers of the time.

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 Churchthough Calvinist ministers came in for their share of both admiring and critical treatment. In the s 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, the hero, a French revolutionary free-thinker, loses the Italian girl he loves because he cannot accept her simple Christianity. In contrast, in the The Sea Lions the hero wins his beloved only after a spiritual transformation while marooned in the Antarctic. And the The Oak Openings features a pious Parson Amen who wins the admiration of the Indians who kill him, praying for them during torture.

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 Julywas he confirmed in this church by his brother-in-law, the Reverend William H. Cooper was one of the more popular 19th-century American authors, and his work was admired greatly throughout the world. 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.

Cooper's work, particularly The Pioneers and The Pilotdemonstrate an early 19th-century American preoccupation with alternating prudence and negligence in a country where property rights were often still in dispute. 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-Wishdepicting 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.

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. According to Tad SzulcCooper 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 s. Though some scholars have hesitated to classify Cooper as a strict Romantic, Victor Hugo pronounced him the greatest novelist of the century outside France.

Cooper was also criticized heavily in his day for his depiction of women characters in his work. James Russell LowellCooper's contemporary and a critic, referred to it poetically in A Fable for Criticswriting, " Cooper's lasting reputation today rests largely upon the five Leatherstocking Tales. He wrote seventeen voluminous literary works during this time, all dedicated to his three main themes: the sea, the frontier, and social criticism.

James Cooper passed away on September 14, Peter S. Beagle Aziz Nesin Francis Adams. Contact About Privacy. Sergey Borodin. He had risen to the position of midshipman in the navy in when his father died. Cooper inherited a share in his father's large estate and took up the life of a gentleman farmer. He married in For the next decade, Cooper and his growing family lived mostly on a farm in Westchester County.

There was no hint of the writer's life that was soon to come. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly, the worth of the Cooper estate dwindled. ByCooper's mother and brothers were dead. Their debts, and in some cases the welfare of their offspring, had been left to Cooper. In or earlyCooper decided to try his hand at writing and self-published his first novel, Precautionwhich was English in style and subject matter.

It was mostly ignored in the United States and had modest sales in England. Cooper's second novel, The Spywas based on a true account of the exploits of a peddler who served General George Washington — behind the lines during the American Revolution — The Spy is considered one of the first truly American novels, and it established Cooper overnight as an important novelist.

Royalties from the popular book saved him from bankruptcy. Cooper moved his family to New York City, then a town of aboutinhabitants. His third novel, The Pioneerscame out in and was the first of what became known as his Leatherstocking Tales. The Pioneers takes place sometime around and is set near Otsego Lake in a place strikingly similar to Cooper's childhood home.

Its protagonist, Natty Bumppo, nicknamed Leatherstocking because of the way he dressed, is an old scout and hunter who despises the ways of civilization and the destruction it entails, such as the leveling of forests for farm land and the slaughter of wildlife. Cooper, early on, had found one of his most important themes: the settling of the continent and the costs of such settlement.

After writing less successful novels on different themes, Cooper returned to his popular character, Natty Bumppo. In his next novel, The PrairieLeatherstocking appears in his old age as a fur trapper, living in the remote regions west of the Mississippi, beyond the corrupting influences of civilization. The Last of the Mohicans and The Prairie were grounded in a view of the forest as the site of heroism and wisdom.

The various Indians in the Leatherstocking books were never, even by Cooper himself, considered realistic. They always stood as symbolic figures, creatures of the wild standing in opposition to the non-Indian creatures of civilization.

Cooper author biography

Cooper took his family to Paris inwhere he wrote The PrairieThe Red Roverconsidered one of his best sea tales, and The Water-Witchanother sea story. Cooper's attentions then turned to more political matters. He wrote his first nonfiction book, Notions of the Americansa strong defense of American democracy intended primarily for the aristocratic-minded British reading public.

Cooper's subsequent novels concerning European politics in the early s were unpopular at home, with poor reviews and even poorer sales. InCooper brought back Natty Bumppo as a young man for a new novel, The Pathfinderin which Leatherstocking fails to win the girl of his choice. He surrenders her to another man with good grace, a sign that he is married to his wilderness.

InCooper penned the final Leatherstocking tale, The Deerslayerin which Natty finds himself with human blood on his blameless hands for the first time. Once again, the Leatherstocking tales brought Cooper a large and grateful readership. Cooper continued to write to the very end of his life, but his popularity faded. Increasingly, Cooper placed himself on the side of the wealthy elite, and critics agree that he had lost touch with the magical wilderness setting that had once stimulated his imagination.

There was basically no such thing as American literature when Cooper began writing. By the time of his death inhe had supplied several of what would become major American literary themes: the cost of progress, the ethics of expansion, or Manifest Destinyand adventures on the sea. Many modern critics find his writing style to be pompous and ornate, his plots far-fetched, and his facts lacking.

Nonetheless, he holds a place as one of the great American novelists of the nineteenth century. James Fenimore Cooper was part of the generation of writers who created the first distinctively American literature following the Revolutionary War. Critics debate whether or not he was a great writer, but it does seem safe to say that Cooper was the father of the American novel, and more specifically of the American war novel.

This is probably all that can be said about him without argument. Mark Twain famously and wittily despised him, more for his squirishness, perhaps, than for his writing. He was often criticized in his own century for too greatly admiring and imitating British writers, and more recently he has been criticized for his patronizing attitude toward Native Americansas well as for his turgid and overwritten prose.

There he was the owner of a substantial property called Angevine, in Scarsdale, which he managed as a gentleman farmer; but he was beset by increasing financial uncertainty, in part due to his family's financial difficulties. His decision to become a writer may well have been prompted by his need to earn money. InCooper published the first U.

Within a year after the appearance of The Spy, one contemporary critic had already dubbed Cooper the first distinguished American novelist, and he was already at work on The Pioneerswhich he called a "Descriptive Tale" set in the frontier wilderness near the area where he grew up in upstate New York. The novel is most significant for its introduction of the character of Natty Bumppo, who went on to be the central character in the Leatherstocking series, which included Cooper's novel of the French and Indian War and arguably his best-known work, The Last of the Mohicans Inhe published The Pilot, which takes place during the Revolution, using the activities of the real-life war hero John Paul Jones off the coast of England as a backdrop for its plot.

Cooper had been a sailor in his youth and The Pilot drew heavily on his knowledge of the cooper author biography. In addition to The Pilot, the final volumes of the Leatherstocking series— The Pathfinder and The Deer Slayer —and Oak OpeningsCooper wrote several novels portraying Americans at war or engaged in conflict with hostile native populations, including his novel, The Wept of Wish-ton-wish, which portrayed the Puritan conflict with the American Indians in King Philip 's War.

He also wrote a number of works of nonfiction, including The History of the Navy of the United States of Americawhich contains a useful, although disputed, description of the Battle of Lake Erieand a series of biographies published as Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers. In the final decade of his life, Cooper wrote a trilogy known as the Littlepage novels after the name of a family whose experiences are central to the storyportraying Americans involved in the Rent War of the s in New York's Ulster and Delaware counties.

As a member of one of the state's oldest property-owning families, he portrayed this anti-rent struggle as representative of moral decay and social decline. Cooper, James Fenimore gale. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. James Fenimore Cooper gale. James Fenimore Cooper Novelist and social critic James Fenimore Cooper was the first major American writer to deal imaginatively with American life, notably in his five "Leather-Stocking Tales.

First Period of His Literary Career Precaution was an attempt to outdo the English domestic novels Cooper had been reading, which he imitated in choice of theme, scene, and manner. Discovering the "American Problem" The cooper author biography of his first America-oriented novel convinced Cooper that he was on the right track, and he decided to turn to his childhood memories for a truthful, if not wholly literal, tale of life on the frontier: The Pioneers Second Period His reputation as a popular novelist established, Cooper went abroad in to arrange for the translation and foreign publication of his works and to give his family the advantages of European residence and travel.

Third Period The third period of Cooper's literary career began in with his return to the Leather-Stocking series and two more chapters in the life of Natty Bumppo, The Pathfinder, in which Cooper used his own experiences on Lake Ontario during the War ofand The Deerslayer, which fills in the young manhood of his hero. Cooper's Achievement The power and persistence of this first major American author in attempting a total imaginative redaction of American life, coupled with an equal skill in the description of place and the depiction of action, overcame the liabilities of both the heavy romantic style current in his day and his substitution of the character type for the individual character.

Sources Ethel R. Early years Cooper was born on September 15, First writing attempt In or earlyCooper decided to try his hand at writing and self-published his first novel, Precautionwhich was English in style and subject matter. Introducing Leatherstockings Cooper moved his family to New York City, then a town of aboutinhabitants. Return to Leatherstocking InCooper brought back Natty Bumppo as a young man for a new novel, The Pathfinderin which Leatherstocking fails to win the girl of his choice.

Legacy There was basically no such thing as American literature when Cooper began writing. September 15, ; d. September 14, American writer known for early U. Charles B. Cooper, James Fenimore oxford. Cooper, James Fenimore — US novelist. One of the earliest American novelists and among the first to gain international recognition.

He also wrote a number of novels about life at sea, including The Pilot More From encyclopedia. Updated Aug 13 About encyclopedia. James Evans to Eleanor Roosevelt. James Edward Francis Stuart. James Dowling Trask. James Dewar. James de Benefactis, Bl. James Dawkins.