[1] Any discussion of Cooper must go back to Lounsbury, T. R. _James
Fenimore Cooper_, American Men of Letters series, Boston, 1883. W. B.
Clymer’s _Cooper_ is mainly an abridgment of Lounsbury. _James Fenimore
Cooper_ (1913) by Mary E. Philips supplies anecdotal information and
pictures.
[2] _Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper._ Edited by his Grandson,
James Fenimore Cooper. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1922.
[3] Brownell, W. C. _American Prose Masters_, New York, 1909, p. 18.
[4] How little encouragement was held out is best related by himself:
“So little was expected from the publication of an original work of
this description, at the time that it was written, that the first
volume of _The Spy_ was actually printed several months before the
author felt a sufficient inducement to write a line of the second....
As the second volume was slowly printing, from manuscript that was
barely dry when it went into the compositor’s hands, the publisher
intimated that the work might grow to a length that would consume
the profits. To set his mind at rest, the last chapter was actually
written, printed, and paged, several weeks before the chapters which
preceded it were even thought of.”
[5] Loshe, L. D. _The Early American Novel_, New York, 1907, pp. 83–84.
[6] See Riverside edition, p. 21. “The recent fate of Andre has created
much irritation on both sides.” Cf. also pp. 68, 208, 298, 301.
[7] Brownell, W. C. _op. cit._, p. 14.
[8] Van Doren, Carl, _op. cit._, p. 28.
[9] See Fisher, Sidney G. _The Legendary and Myth-Making Process in
Histories of the American Revolution_; Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Soc., Vol. LI, No. 204, April–June, 1912. See also
references in footnote 29, page 27 of this thesis.
[10] Van Doren, Carl, _op. cit._, p. 15.
[11] For the attitude of English critics toward American writings see
Cairns, W. B. _British Criticisms of American Writings, 1815–1833_,
University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, No. 14.
Madison, 1922.
[12] Erskine, John, _op. cit._, p. 65.
[13] _The Pioneers_ (Houghton Mifflin ed.). Introduction, xxxiii,
states Cooper’s intention to generalize; it further states his theory
of fiction: “Rigid adhesion to truth, an indispensable requisite in
history and travels, destroys the charm of fiction; for all that is
necessary to be conveyed to the mind by the latter had better be done
by delineations of principles, and of characters in their classes, than
by a too fastidious attention to originals.”
[14] Richard Jones, a hanger-on, who conceals his dependent state by a
kind of horse-play raillery of his patron and occasionally mixes toddy
evidently was taken over from the bachelor in _Bracebridge Hall_.
[15] Van Doren, _op. cit._, p. 30.
[16] _Introduction_, xxxvii, note: “Though forests still crown the
mountains of Otsego, the bear, the wolf, and the panther are nearly
strangers to them.” See also p. 35.
[17] Introduction to _The Pioneers_, i.
[18] That this was already realized may be seen from the review in _The
North American Review_, 15:250.
[19] _Portifolio_ 15 (1823) 230: “Natty Bumppo, ... we think, has been
modelled from the effigies of old Daniel Boone, who abandoned the
society of his kindred and built a hut among the Indians; and persisted
in moving further into the interior as civilization invaded his wild
domains.... It might indeed be called _historical_; for the historian
can scarcely find a more just and vivid delineation of the first
settlements of our wilderness.”
[20] See Chapter V.
[21] Not only did he write five sea novels, a _History of the Navy_,
and articles about the navy, but even in his land novels sailors were
frequently introduced, and _The Prairie_, for example, is viewed as a
sea of sand upon which the prairie schooners sail. _The Pathfinder_
makes use of his experiences upon Lake Ontario.
[22] Introduction to _The Pilot_, xv.
[23] _Atlantic Monthly_, 100:337.
[24] Conrad, Joseph. _Notes on Life and Letters_ (1921), p. 78. The
entire article, “Tales of the Sea,” should be read for its tribute to
Cooper’s insight into the poetry of the sea.
[25] _North American Review_, 1824:314, “By implicating the tale with
our naval history, the author possesses himself of one of the few
positions from which our national enthusiasm is accessible.”
[26] Introduction, xxii.
[27] Erskine, _op. cit._, p. 71. As early as 1800 there had appeared
_The Life and History of Paul Jones, the English Corsair_. See Seitz,
Don C. _Paul Jones, a complete bibliography_. New York (1917).
[28] How much this book has been neglected may be inferred from the
fact that Lounsbury gives it but two paragraphs: Erskine cuts these
down to one, and others are content with one condemnatory sentence.
[29] Lounsbury, T. R. _op. cit._, p. 49.
[30] Van Doren, _op. cit._, p. 32.
[31] _Southern Literary Messenger_, 1838:375, speaks of _Lionel
Lincoln’s_ popularity as unprecedented. “It was this production that
created in Boston and throughout New England, a popularity for Mr.
Cooper’s works, at one period so great, as to become among novel
readers, almost a mania.” Cf. _U. S. Literary Gazette_ I:340; _North
American Review_ 23:154.
[32] Introduction to _The Last of the Mohicans_, p. xviii. How
seriously the subject took hold of Cooper his daughter elsewhere
records: In her childhood there was nearly always an Indian book on her
father’s table.
[33] _North American Review_, 26:373.
[34] Preface to _The Deerslayer_.
[35] See Appendix C.
[36] _Last of the Mohicans_, Riverside ed., p. 133.
[37] _The Nation_, 112:255.
[38] _Roundabout Papers._
[39] Erskine, pp. 80–81. This view is suggested by Cooper’s own note to
his text, Riverside ed., p. 4.
[40] Erskine, p. 81. “A beautiful conception of old-world grace and
courtliness, which Cooper must have drawn with affection,” Erskine
remarks, “yet with all of Montcalm’s adroitness, his management of the
Indians and his tact in treating with a conquered foe--the reader is
made to feel the moral slipperiness which the hearty Englishman resents
with a national distrust of French traditional perfidy.”
[41] Riverside ed. _Last of the Mohicans_, pp. 211–12. Cooper’s only
comment that I can find on the relation of the sister muses.
[42] Dwight, Timothy. _Travels in New England and New York_ (1821),
III, 362–376. After stating that Montcalm made no reasonable effort to
check the Indians, he emphasizes the timidity and imbecility of Webb
who lay at Fort Edward with 6,000 men, doing nothing. Dwight narrates
as from Captain Noble, who was present, that when Sir William Johnson
would gather volunteers from Webb’s garrison to proceed to Munroe’s
assistance, Webb forbade it. Cooper’s rendering of the massacre is
sharply criticized by Martin in his _Montcalm en Canada_, chaps. 4 and
5. Cf. also Rameau, _La France aux Colonies_, II, p. 306; _N. H. Prov.
Papers_, VI, 604, 605, and Stone, W. L. _Life and Times of Johnson_.
[43] Phillips, Mary E. _James Fenimore Cooper_ (1912), p. 129.
[44] Introduction to _Last of the Mohicans_, p. xviii.
[45] The analogy which the spectacle afforded in Cooper’s mind to the
conquest of Canaan, has not been commented upon, but a case can be
made for it from the biblical names he for the first time applied to
nearly all the characters; from the bee-hunter in his land of honey,
the encounters with the “Ishmaelites of the plains,” the Sioux, the
stampede of the buffalo furnishing the terror of wild beasts, and the
problem of the Red Sea transformed into that of prairie fire, with
Leatherstocking the Moses to show how to circumvent this difficulty.
[46] This was fitting for an old man. Thackeray pronounced
Leatherstocking the greatest character created in Fiction since the
_Don Quixote_ of Cervantes and he thought the death scene in _The
Prairie_, in which the old trapper said “Here!” as surpassing anything
he had met in English literature. Phillips, 1621. Thackeray imitated
this scene in Colonel Newcome’s “Adsum!”
[47] For a full discussion of these, see next chapter.
[48] Like many other romantic stories, it rests upon insufficient
authority, Cf. Fiske, John. _The Beginnings of New England_, p.
218; “The story rests chiefly upon the statements of Hutchinson, an
extremely careful and judicious writer.... Goffe kept a diary which
came into Hutchinson’s possession.... A paramount regard for Goffe’s
personal safety would quite account for the studied silence of
contemporary writers like Hubbard and Increase Mather.”
[49] _The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish_, Preface. (Houghton Mifflin ed.), p.
xi.
[50] Lounsbury, _op. cit._, p. 75.
[51] Erskine, _op. cit._, p. 92.
[52] For example, “the kine had yielded their nightly tribute,” used
four times. “Smoke” is called “the vapor that rolled upward;” a child
is always spoken of as “the cherub,” etc.
[53] _Southern Literary Messenger_, 1838:373.
[54] _The Cambridge History of American Literature_, I, p. 306.