James Fenimore Cooper Essay Example For Students

James Fenimore Cooper Essay James Fenimore CooperJames Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey on September 15, 1789 to William and Elizabeth Cooper. He was born the eleventh of twelve children. When James was one year old the family moved to the frontier of Lake Otsego, New York, and his father established the settlement of Cooperstown at the head of the Susquehanna River. Cooper attended a private prep school in Albany, New York, and was then admitted to Yale in 1803. He was expelled during his junior year because of a prank. His family allowed him to join the navy, but he soon found that more discipline was present in the Navy than at Yale. In 1810 Cooper took a furlough, and never returned to active duty. James Fenimore Cooper married Susan De Lancy in 1811, and for the next ten years he lived as a country gentleman. However, after the death of all five of his elder brothers he became responsible for supporting their widows and paying their debts. He then found out that his fathers estate had not been worth as much as originally thought. In 1820 Cooper published his first fiction, Precaution, on a challenge from his wife. This novel was largely unsuccessful. In 1821 he published his second book, The Spy, which was modeled after Sir Walter Scotts Waverly novels, except it was set during the American Revolution. The Spy brought Cooper international fame and a certain amount of wealth. Cooper established his reputation after his second novel, The Spy, and in his third book, the autobiographical Pioneers (1823), Cooper introduced the character of Natty Bumppo, a uniquely American personification of rugged individualism and the pioneer spirit. A second book featuring Bumppo, The Last of the Mohicans written in 1826, quickly became the most widely read work of the day, solidifying Coopers popularity in the U.S. and in Europe. Set during the French and Indian War, The Last of the Mohicans chronicles the massacre of the colonial garrison at Fort William Henry and a fictional kidnapping of two pioneer sisters. Cooper knew few Indians, so he drew on a Moravian missionarys account of two opposing tribes; the Delawares and the Mingos. Although this characterization was filled with inaccuracies, the dual image of the opposing tribes allowed Cooper to create a lasting image of the Indian that became a part of the American consciousness for almost two centuries. His public was simultaneously touched romantically at the doomed Indians fate and justified in abetting their extermination. The hero of the novel, Natty Bumppo, was incredibly popular, a rebel heroically opposed to industrial society, he was a hero who never married or changed his ideals. Cooper was a prolific writer, publishing 32 novels, 12 works of nonfiction, a play and numerous pamphlets and articles. His most lasting contributions to American literature were his five books about Natty Bumppo, varying in genre from implausible romantic adventure to realistic narrative. Later anthologized as The Leatherstocking Tales, they are best read in the order written: The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841). Coopers popularity declined in his later years as he entered into the nationalistic and partisan disputes of the Jacksonian era, becoming increasingly contentious toward reviewers and the public. Cooper died at Cooperstown on September 14, 1851, one day before his sixty-second birthday. Cooper was, and continues to be, and immensely popular writer, and he is generally considered to be the first major American novelist.