James Fenimore Cooper - Writings

Writings

In 1820, Cooper's wife Susan wagered that he could write a book better than the one she was reading. In response to the wager, Cooper wrote the novel Precaution, or Prevention is Better than Cure (1820), known simply as Precaution. The novel's focus on morals and manners was influenced by Jane Austen's approach to fiction. He anonymously published Precaution and soon wrote several other novels. In 1823, he published The Pioneers. The Pioneers was the first of the Leatherstocking series. The series features Natty Bumppo, a resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and their chief Chingachgook. Bumppo was the main character of Cooper's most famous novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). The Last of the Mohicans became one of the most widely read American novels of the 19th century. The book was written in New York City, where Cooper and his family lived from 1822 to 1826.

In 1823, while living in New York on Beech St., Cooper became a member of the Philadelphia Philosophical Society. In August of this year his first son died.

In 1824 General Lafayette arrived from France as the nation's guest aboard the Cadmus at Castle Garden in New York City. Cooper witnessed his arrival and later was one of the active committee of welcome and entertainment.

In 1826 Cooper moved his family to Europe, where he sought to gain more income from his books as well as provide better education for his children. While overseas, he continued to write. His books published in Paris include The Red Rover and The Water Witch—two of his many sea stories. During his time in Paris, the Cooper family was seen as the center of the small American expatriate community. During this time he developed a friendship with the painter Samuel Morse and French General and American Revolutionary War hero, marquis de Lafayette.

In 1832 he entered the lists as a political writer; in a series of letters to the National, a Parisian journal, he defended the United States against a string of charges brought against them by the Revue Britannique. For the rest of his life, he continued skirmishing in print, sometimes for the national interest, sometimes for that of the individual, and not infrequently for both at once.

This opportunity to make a political confession of faith reflected the political turn he already had taken in his fiction, having attacked European anti-republicanism in The Bravo (1831). Cooper continued this political course in The Heidenmauer (1832) and The Headsman: or the Abbaye of Vigneron (1833). The Bravo depicted Venice as a place where a ruthless oligarchy lurks behind the mask of the "serene republic". All were widely read on both sides of the Atlantic, though The Bravo was a critical failure in the United States.

In 1833 Cooper returned to the United States and immediately published A Letter to My Countrymen, in which he gave his own version of the controversy and sharply censured his compatriots for their share in it. He followed up with novels and several sets of notes on his travels and experiences in Europe. His Homeward Bound and Home as Found are notable for containing a highly idealized self-portrait.

In June 1834, Cooper decided to reopen his ancestral mansion, Otsego Hall, at Cooperstown. 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 speedily put in order. At first, he wintered in New York City and summered in Cooperstown, but eventually he made Otsego Hall his permanent home.

On May 10, 1839, Cooper published History of the Navy of the United States of America. It was a work he had long planned on writing. Before departing for Europe in May, 1826, at a dinner given in his honor, he publicly announced his intentions during a parting speech that he would be authoring this great historical work while abroad:

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.

His historical account of the U.S. Navy was first well received but later was harshly criticized in America and abroad. It took Cooper fourteen years to research and gather material for the book. His close association with the U.S. Navy and various naval officers and his familiarity with naval life at sea made him more than qualified to research and write this work. Cooper's work is said to have stood the test of time and is largely considered an authoritative account of the U.S. Navy during that time.

In 1844 Cooper's Proceedings of the naval court martial in the case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, a commander in the navy of the United States, &c:, was first published in Graham's Magazine of 1843-44. It was a review of the court martial of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie who while at sea, had hanged three crew members of the brig USS Sommers for mutiny. One of the hanged men, nineteen-year-old Philip Spencer, was the son of Secretary of State John C. Spencer. He was executed without court-martial along with two other sailors aboard the Somers for allegedly attempting mutiny. Just prior to this affair Cooper was in the process of giving harsh review to Mackenzie's version of the Battle of Lake Erie. Mackenzie had previously given harsh criticism to Cooper's interpretation of the Battle of Lake Erie contained in Cooper's History of the Navy of the United States, 1839). However he still felt sympathetic to Mackenzie over his pending court martial at the time.

In 1846 Cooper published Lives of distinguished American naval officers covering the biographies of Commodores William Bainbridge, Richard Somers, John Shaw, William Shubrick and Edward Preble.

In May 1853 Old Ironsides in the Putnam's Monthly. It was a naval historical and became the first posthumous publication of his writings.

In 1856, five years after Cooper's death his History of the navy of the United States of America was published. The work was an account of the U.S. Navy in the early 19th century. Among naval historians of the period the work has come to be recognized as a general and authoritative account, however it was criticized for accuracy on some points by other students of that period. For example, Cooper's account of the Battle of Lake Erie was said to be less than accurate by some naval historians. For making such claims Cooper once sued a Park Benjamin, Jr. a poet and also editor of the Evening Signal of New York, for libel.