Works. Cooper, James Fenimore: A Brief Biography, The Last of the Mohicans
Biography
Shortly after the birth of Fenimore, his father, Judge William Cooper (English)Russian, a fairly wealthy Quaker landowner, moved to New York State and founded Cooperstown (English)Russian turned into a small town. After receiving his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but without completing the course, entered the naval service (1806-1811) and was assigned to be in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario.
We owe this circumstance to the wonderful descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario. In 1811, Cooper married Susan Augusta Delancey, a Frenchwoman, from a family that sympathized with England during the Revolutionary War; its influence explains the relatively mild reviews of the British and the English government that are found in Cooper's early novels. Chance made him a writer. Once reading a novel aloud to his wife, Cooper noticed that it was not difficult to write better. His wife caught him at his word, and in order not to seem like a braggart, he wrote his first novel "Precaution" in a few weeks. Precaution; ).
Novels
Assuming that due to the already beginning of competition between English and American authors, English critics would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name for the first novel. "Precaution"() and transferred the action of this novel to England. The latter circumstance could only harm the book, which revealed the author's poor acquaintance with English life and drew very unfavorable reviews from English critics. Cooper's second novel, already from American life, was the famous "The Spy, or the Tale of Neutral Territory"("The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground",), which had tremendous success not only in America, but also in Europe.
Then Cooper wrote a whole series of novels from American life ( "The Pioneers, or At the Beginning of Sasquihanna", ; "The last of the Mohicans", ; "Steppes", otherwise "Prairie",; "Trace Discoverer", otherwise "Pathfinder", ; "Deer Hunter", otherwise « » ,), where he depicted the wars of the European aliens among themselves, in which they involved the American Indians, forcing the tribes to fight against each other. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natty (Nathaniel) Bumpo, acting under various names (St. John's Wort, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leather Stocking, Long Carabiner), energetic and likable, who soon became a favorite of the European public. Cooper's idealized, albeit with subtle humor and satire, usually accessible only to an adult reader, are not only this representative of European civilization, but also some of the Indians (Chingachgook, Uncas).
The success of this series of novels was so great that even English critics had to recognize Cooper's talent and called him the American Walter Scott. In the city of Cooper he went to Europe, where he spent seven years. Several novels were the fruit of this journey - "Bravo, or in Venice", "The Headsman", "Mercedes from Castile, or the Journey to Catay" (Mercedes of Castile), which are set in Europe.
The skill of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the brightness of descriptions of nature, from which the primal freshness of the virgin forests of America blows, the relief in the depiction of characters that stand before the reader as if they were alive - these are Cooper's merits as a novelist. He also wrote nautical novels "Pilot, or Marine History" (), "Red Corsair" ().
After Europe
Upon his return from Europe, Cooper wrote a political allegory "Monikiny"(), five volumes of travel notes (-), several novels from American life ("Satanstow"; and others), a pamphlet "American Democrat" (The American Democrat, 1838). In addition, he also wrote "History of the United States Navy". The desire for complete impartiality revealed in this work did not satisfy either his compatriots or the British; the controversy he caused poisoned the last years of Cooper's life. Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851 from cirrhosis of the liver.
James Fenimore Cooper in Russia
Adventure novels by James Fenimore Cooper were very popular in the USSR, their author was quickly recognized by his second, rare, name Fenimore en. For example, the film "The Mystery of Fenimore", the third episode of the children's television mini-series "Three Merry Shifts" in 1977 based on the stories of Y. Yakovlev, tells about a mysterious stranger named Fenimore, who in the pioneer camp comes at night to the boys' ward and tells amazing stories about Indians and aliens.
Bibliography
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- composes for his daughters the traditional morality novel Precaution.
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- historical novel "The Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground" (The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground), based on local lore. The novel poeticizes the era of the American Revolution and its ordinary heroes. "Spy" gets international recognition. Cooper moved with his family to New York, where he soon became a prominent literary figure and a leader of writers who championed the national identity of American literature.
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- the fourth part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo "Pioneers, or at the origins of Sasquihanna"
- short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
- The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea, the first of Cooper's many adventures at sea.
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- the novel Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston.
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- the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo, Cooper's most popular novel, which has become a household name, is The Last of the Mohicans.
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- the fifth part of the pentalogy is the novel "The Steppes", otherwise "The Prairie".
- nautical novel The Red Rover.
- Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
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- the novel "The Valley of Wish-ton-Wish" (The wept of Wish-ton-Wish), dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of the American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.
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- the fantastic story of the brigantine of the same name, The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas.
- Letter to General Lafayette politics
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- The first part of a trilogy from the history of European feudalism "Bravo, or in Venice" (The bravo) is a novel from the distant past of Venice.
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- The second part of The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine trilogy is a historical novel from the early Reformation in Germany.
- short stories (No Steamboats)
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- the third part of the trilogy "The Executioner, or The Abbaye des vignerons" (The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons) is a legend of the 18th century. about the hereditary executioners of the Swiss canton of Bern.
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- (A Letter to His Countrymen)
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- criticism of American reality in the political allegory "The Monikins", written in the tradition of enlightenment allegorism and satire of J. Swift.
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- memoir (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
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- Gleanings in Europe: France travel
- Gleanings in Europe: England travel
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- pamphlet "American Democrat" (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
- Hommeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
- Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound
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- "The History of the Navy of the United States of America", testifying to the excellent mastery of the material and love for sailing.
- Old ironsides
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- "The Pathfinder, or The inland sea" - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo
- a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus, Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay.
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- John's Wort, or The First Warpath, or The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath is the first part of the pentalogy.
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- the novel "The two admirals", which tells an episode from the history of the British fleet, which was waging a war with France in 1745
- a novel about French privateering, Wing-and-Wing (or Le feu-follet).
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- the novel Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale about the American Revolution in the wilderness 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)
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- Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale
- and its sequel, Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore, where the protagonist is autobiographical.
- Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, & c.
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- two parts of the "land rent trilogy": Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony and The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts.
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- the third part of the trilogy is the novel "Redskins" (The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts). In this trilogy, Cooper portrays three generations of landowners (from the middle of the 18th century to the struggle against land rent in the 1980s).
- Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography
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- late Cooper's pessimism 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.
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- the novel "The Oak Grove" or "The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter" - from the history of the Anglo-American war of Mr.
- Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
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- Cooper's latest maritime novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, is about a shipwreck that befell sealers in the ice of Antarctica.
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- 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
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- short story (The Lake Gun)
- (New York: or The Towns of Manhattan) - unfinished work on the history of New York.
Memory
- In philately
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Literature
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
- Lowell, American Literature (vol. I);
- Richardson, “Amer. Literature "(vol. II);
- Griswold, "The Prose Writers of America";
- Knortz, "Geschichte der nordamerikanischen Literatur" (vol. I);
- Lounsbury, Life of J. F. Cooper (Boston, 1883);
- Warner, "American Men of Letters: J.-F. Cooper ".
- (ZhZL)
Links
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Excerpt from Cooper, James Fenimore
Here he is lying on an armchair in his velvet coat, his head resting on his thin, pale hand. His chest is terribly low and his shoulders are raised. The lips are firmly compressed, the eyes shine, and a wrinkle jumps and disappears on the pale forehead. One of his legs trembles a little noticeably quickly. Natasha knows that he is struggling with excruciating pain. “What is this pain? Why is pain? How does he feel? How it hurts! " - thinks Natasha. He noticed her attention, raised his eyes and, without smiling, began to speak.“One thing is terrible,” he said, “is to associate yourself forever with a suffering person. This is eternal torment. " And with a searching glance - Natasha saw this look now - he looked at her. Natasha, as always, answered then before she had time to think about what she was answering; she said: "It cannot go on like this, it will not happen, you will be healthy - absolutely."
She now first saw him and now experienced everything that she felt then. She remembered his long, sad, stern gaze at these words and understood the meaning of reproach and despair of this long gaze.
“I agreed,” Natasha said to herself now, “that it would be awful if he remained always suffering. I said it that way then only because it would be terrible for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it would be terrible for me. He still wanted to live then - he was afraid of death. And I told him so rudely, stupidly. I didn't think that. I thought quite differently. If I said what I thought, I would say: even if he was dying, he would be dying all the time in front of my eyes, I would be happy in comparison with what I am now. Now ... Nothing, no one. Did he know this? No. Didn't know and never will. And now you can never, never fix it. " And again he spoke to her the same words, but now in her imagination Natasha answered him differently. She stopped him and said: “Terrible for you, but not for me. You know that without you there is nothing in my life, and suffering with you is the best happiness for me. " And he took her hand and shook it the way he shook it on that terrible evening, four days before his death. And in her imagination she spoke to him still other tender, loving speeches that she could have said then, which she spoke now. "I love you ... I love you ... I love you ..." she said, convulsively clenching her hands, clenching her teeth with a fierce effort.
And sweet sorrow overtook her, and tears already appeared in her eyes, but suddenly she asked herself: to whom is she saying this? Where is he and who is he now? And again everything was covered with dry, harsh bewilderment, and again, tensely knitting her eyebrows, she peered at where he was. And so, now, it seemed to her that she was penetrating the secret ... But at that moment, as it seemed to her that the incomprehensible was revealed to her, the loud knock of the door lock knob painfully struck her hearing. Quickly and carelessly, with a frightened, unoccupied expression on her face, the maid Dunyasha entered the room.
“Come to papa, rather,” said Dunyasha with a special and lively expression. “Misfortune, about Pyotr Ilyich… a letter,” she said with a sob.
In addition to the general feeling of alienation from all people, Natasha at this time experienced a special feeling of alienation from the faces of her family. All her own: father, mother, Sonya, were so close to her, accustomed, so everyday that all their words, feelings seemed to her an insult to the world in which she had lived recently, and she was not only indifferent, but looked at them with hostility. ... She heard Dunyasha's words about Pyotr Ilyich, about misfortune, but did not understand them.
“What kind of misfortune is there, what kind of misfortune can there be? They all have their old, familiar and deceased, ”Natasha said to herself in her mind.
When she entered the hall, her father quickly left the countess's room. His face was wrinkled and wet with tears. He apparently ran out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were crushing him. Seeing Natasha, he frantically waved his arms and burst out with painfully convulsive sobs that distorted his round, soft face.
- Pe ... Petya ... Go, go, she ... she ... calls ... - And he, sobbing like a child, quickly seeding with weak legs, went up to the chair and fell almost on him, covering his face with his hands.
Suddenly, like an electric current ran through Natasha's entire being. Something struck her terribly in the heart. She felt terrible pain; it seemed to her that something was coming off in her and that she was dying. But in the wake of the pain, she felt an instant release from the prohibition of life that lay on her. Seeing her father and hearing the terrible, rude cry of her mother from behind the door, she instantly forgot herself and her grief. She ran to her father, but he, waving his hand powerlessly, pointed to the mother's door. Princess Marya, pale, with a trembling lower jaw, came out of the door and took Natasha by the hand, telling her something. Natasha did not see, did not hear her. She walked through the door with quick steps, stopped for a moment, as if in a struggle with herself, and ran up to her mother.
The Countess was lying on an armchair, stretching out strangely awkwardly, and banging her head against the wall. Sonya and the girls held her hands.
- Natasha, Natasha! .. - shouted the countess. - Not true, not true ... He is lying ... Natasha! She shouted, pushing those around her away. - Go away, everyone, it’s not true! They killed! .. ha ha ha ha! .. not true!
Natasha knelt on a chair, bent over her mother, hugged her, lifted her with unexpected force, turned her face to her and pressed herself against her.
- Mom! .. dear! .. I'm here, my friend. Mom, - she whispered to her, not stopping for a second.
She would not let her mother out, fought tenderly with her, demanded pillows, water, unbuttoned and tore her mother's dress.
“My friend, darling ... mamma, darling,” she whispered incessantly, kissing her head, hands, face and feeling how her tears flowed uncontrollably in streams, tickling her nose and cheeks.
The Countess squeezed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes and was quiet for a moment. Suddenly she got up with unusual speed, looked around senselessly and, seeing Natasha, began to squeeze her head with all her might. Then she turned her face, wrinkled with pain, towards her and gazed into it for a long time.
“Natasha, you love me,” she said in a quiet, trusting whisper. - Natasha, won't you deceive me? Will you tell me the whole truth?
Natasha looked at her with eyes filled with tears, and in her face there was only a plea for forgiveness and love.
“My friend, mamma,” she repeated, straining all the strength of her love to somehow remove from her the excess of grief that pressed her.
And again, in a powerless struggle with reality, the mother, refusing to believe that she could live when her beloved boy, blossoming with life, was killed, escaped from reality in a world of madness.
Natasha did not remember how that day, night, next day, next night went. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Natasha's love, persistent, patient, not as an explanation, not as a consolation, but as a call to life, every second seemed to embrace the countess from all sides. On the third night, the Countess was quiet for a few minutes, and Natasha closed her eyes, leaning her head on the arm of the chair. The bed creaked. Natasha opened her eyes. The Countess sat on the bed and spoke softly.
- How glad I am that you came. Are you tired, would you like some tea? - Natasha went up to her. “You have grown prettier and matured,” the countess continued, taking her daughter by the hand.
- Mamma, what are you talking about! ..
- Natasha, he's gone, no more! - And, embracing her daughter, for the first time the Countess began to cry.
Princess Marya postponed her departure. Sonya, Count tried to replace Natasha, but could not. They saw that she alone could keep her mother from mad despair. For three weeks Natasha lived hopelessly with her mother, slept on an armchair in her room, gave her drink, fed her and spoke to her without stopping, she said, because one gentle, caressing voice soothed the countess.
The mother's wound could not heal. Petya's death tore off half of her life. A month after the news of Petya's death, who found her a fresh and vigorous fifty-year-old woman, she left her room half-dead and not taking part in life - an old woman. But the same wound that half killed the Countess, this new wound brought Natasha to life.
A mental wound resulting from the rupture of the spiritual body, just like a physical wound, oddly enough it seems, after a deep wound has healed and seems to come together at its edges, a mental wound, like a physical wound, heals only from the inside by the bulging force of life.
Natasha's wound healed in the same way. She thought her life was over. But suddenly love for her mother showed her that the essence of her life - love - was still alive in her. Love woke up and life woke up.
During the last days of Prince Andrei, Natasha was tied to Princess Marya. The new misfortune brought them closer together. Princess Marya postponed her departure and for the last three weeks, like a sick child, looked after Natasha. The last weeks Natasha spent in her mother's room had strained her physical strength.
Once Princess Marya, in the middle of the day, noticing that Natasha was trembling in a feverish chill, took her to her place and put her in her bed. Natasha went to bed, but when Princess Marya, lowering her sides, wanted to go out, Natasha called her over to her.
- I don't want to sleep. Marie, sit with me.
- You are tired - try to sleep.
- No no. Why did you take me away? She will ask.
“She’s much better. She spoke so well today, ”said Princess Marya.
Natasha lay in bed and in the semi-darkness of the room examined the face of Princess Marya.
“Does she look like him? - thought Natasha. - Yes, it is similar and not similar. But she is special, alien, completely new, unknown. And she loves me. What's on her mind? Everything is good. But how? What does she think? How does she look at me? Yes, she's beautiful. "
“Masha,” she said, timidly drawing her hand to her. - Masha, do not think that I am bad. No? Masha, my dear. I love you so much. Let's be completely, completely friends.
And Natasha, embracing, began to kiss the hands and face of Princess Marya. Princess Marya was ashamed and rejoiced at this expression of Natasha's feelings.
From that day on, that passionate and tender friendship that exists only between women was established between Princess Marya and Natasha. They kissed incessantly, spoke tender words to each other, and spent most of their time together. If one went out, the other was restless and rushed to join her. The two of them felt a greater harmony with each other than separately, each with itself. A feeling stronger than friendship was established between them: it was an exceptional feeling of the possibility of life only in the presence of each other.
Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes, already lying in bed, they began to talk and talked until morning. They spoke for the most part about the distant past. Princess Marya talked about her childhood, about her mother, about her father, about her dreams; and Natasha, who had previously turned away from this life, devotion, obedience, from the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, with a calm lack of understanding, now, feeling herself bound by love with Princess Marya, fell in love with Princess Marya's past and understood the side of life that was previously incomprehensible to her. She did not think to apply humility and self-denial to her life, because she was used to looking for other joys, but she understood and fell in love with this previously incomprehensible virtue in another. For Princess Marya, who listened to stories about Natasha's childhood and first youth, the previously incomprehensible side of life, faith in life, in the pleasures of life, was also revealed.
They never spoke about him in exactly the same way, so as not to break with words, as it seemed to them, the height of the feeling that was in them, and this silence about him did something that little by little, not believing it, they forgot him.
Natasha lost weight, turned pale and became so physically weak that everyone was constantly talking about her health, and it was pleasant to her. But sometimes she unexpectedly found not only the fear of death, but the fear of illness, weakness, loss of beauty, and involuntarily she sometimes carefully examined her bare hand, marveling at her thinness, or looked in the morning in the mirror at her stretched out, pathetic, as it seemed to her , face. It seemed to her that it should be so, and at the same time she became scared and sad.
Once she soon went upstairs and was heavily out of breath. Immediately, involuntarily, she thought of a thing below and from there ran upstairs again, trying her strength and observing herself.
Author of 33 novels. His style combined elements of romanticism and enlightenment. For a long time, Cooper's work was the personification of American adventure literature. Of course, similar works were written before him. But Fenimore became the first writer to gain recognition from a European audience. And his novels firmly entered the circle of interests of a huge number of children. This article will present a short biography of the writer, as well as describe his key works.
Childhood
James Fenimore Cooper was born in 1789 in Burlington (New Jersey). The boy's father was a large landowner. The childhood of the future writer was spent in the village of Cooperstown, located in the state of New York, on the shore of the lake. It was named after James' father. Of course, the origin left an imprint on the formation of the political views of the hero of this article. Fenimore preferred the "country gentlemen" way of life and remained an adherent of large land tenure. And he connected democratic land reforms only with rampant demagoguery and bourgeois money-grubbing.
Study and wanderings
First, Cooper James Fenimore was educated at a local school, and then entered Yale College. After graduation, the young man had no desire to continue his studies. Seventeen-year-old James became a sailor in the merchant and later in the navy. The future writer crossed the Atlantic Ocean, traveled a lot. Fenimore also studied well the Great Lakes region, where the action of his works will soon unfold. In those years, he accumulated a lot of material for his literary work in the form of a variety of life experiences.
Carier start
In 1810, after his father's funeral, Cooper James Fenimore married and settled with his family in the small town of Scarsdale. Ten years later, he wrote his first novel, Precaution. James later recalled that he created this work "on a dare." Fenimore's wife was fond of Therefore, the hero of this article half-jokingly, half-seriously took up writing such a book.
"Spy"
The Revolutionary War was a topic of great interest to James Fenimore Cooper at the time. The Spy, written by him in 1821, was entirely devoted to this problem. The patriotic novel brought the author resounding fame. We can say that with this work, Cooper filled the void formed in national literature and showed the guidelines for its future development. From that moment on, Fenimore decided to devote himself entirely to literary creation. In the next six years, he wrote several more novels, including three works that were included in the future pentalogy about Leather Stocking. But we will talk about them separately.
Europe
In 1826, James Fenimore Cooper, whose books were already quite popular, traveled to Europe. He lived for a long time in Italy, France. The writer also traveled to other countries. New impressions made him turn to the history of both the Old and New Worlds. In Europe, the hero of this article wrote two nautical novels ("The Sea Sorceress", "The Red Corsair") and a trilogy about the Middle Ages ("The Executioner", "Heidenmauer", "Bravo").
Return to America
Seven years later, Cooper James Fenimore came home. America has changed a lot during his absence. The heroic time of the revolution was in the past, and the principles were forgotten. In the United States, a period of industrial revolution began, which destroyed the remnants of patriarchy both in human relations and in life. “The Great Moral Eclipse” is how Cooper dubbed the disease that has permeated American society. Money has become the highest interest and priority for people.
Appeal to fellow citizens
James Fenimore Cooper, whose books were known far beyond the borders of America, decided to try to "reason" his fellow citizens. He still believed in the advantages of the socio-political system of his own country, considering bad phenomena to be superficial, external perversion of the initially healthy and reasonable foundations. And Fenimore issued Letters to Compatriots. In them, he called to rise to the fight against the emerging "distortions".
But it did not end with success. On the contrary, a lot of secret slander and open hatred fell on James. Bourgeois America did not ignore his appeal. She accused Fenimore of arrogance, quarrelsomeness, lack of patriotism and lack of literary talent. After that, the writer retired to Cooperstown. There he continued to create nonfiction works and novels.
The last period of creativity
During this period of time, James Fenimore Cooper, whose complete works are now in almost any library, finished the last two novels of the pentalogy about Leather Stocking (St. John's Wort, Pathfinder). In 1835 he published the satirical novel "Monokins" about the naked vices of the socio-political system of the United States and England. In the book, they are displayed under the names Low and High. Also noteworthy is his trilogy about land rent ("Surveyor", "Devil's Finger", "Redskins"), released in the forties. Ideologically and artistically, Cooper's latest works are highly unequal. In addition to criticizing the bourgeois system, they contain components of a conservative utopia that give readers a false idea of the "landed aristocracy." But, despite this, the writer always adhered to critical anti-bourgeois positions.
Leather Stocking Pentalogy
This series of books is the highest achievement of Cooper's work. It includes five novels: "The Pioneers", "Prairies", "The Last of the Mohicans", "St. John's Wort" and "Pathfinder". All of them are united by the image of the main character named Nathaniel Bumpo. He is a hunter who has many nicknames: Long Carbine, Leather Stocking, Hawkeye, Pathfinder, St. John's Wort.
The pentalogy represents the entire life of Bumpo - from adolescence to death. But the stages in Nathaniel's life do not coincide with the order of writing novels. James Fenimore Cooper, whose collected works all fans of his work have, began to describe the life of Bumpo from an old age. The saga continued with a story about Natty's mature age, then there was old age. And only after a thirteen-year break, Cooper again took up the history of Leather Stocking and described his youth. Below we list the works of the pentalogy in the order of maturation of the main character.
"St. John's wort"
Nathaniel Bumpo is here in his early twenties. The enemies of the young man are the Indians of the Huron tribe. Fighting with them, Natty meets Chingachgook on his way. With this Indian from the Mohican tribe, Bampo will make friends and will maintain a relationship for the rest of his life. The situation in the work is complicated by the fact that Natty's white allies are unfair and cruel to a foreign people. They themselves provoke bloodshed and violence. Dramatic adventures - captivity, escape, battles, ambushes - unfold against the backdrop of a very picturesque nature - the wooded shores of the Shimmering Lake and its mirror-like surface.
"The Last of the Mohicans"
Perhaps the most famous novel by Fenimore. Here the antipode of Bampo is the insidious and cruel leader Magua. He kidnapped Alice and Cora, the daughters of Colonel Munroe. Bumpo led a small detachment and set out to free the captives. Natty also accompanies Chingachgook along with her son Uncas. The latter is in love with one of the kidnapped girls (Cora), although Cooper does not particularly develop this line. Chingachgook's son dies in battle trying to save his beloved. The novel ends with the funeral scene of Cora and Uncas (the last of the Mohicans). After Chingachgook and Natty set off on new wanderings.
"Pathfinder"
The plot of this novel is centered on the Anglo-French war of 1750-1760. Its members try to trick or bribe the Indians to their side. Nutty and Chingachgook fight to help their brethren. However, Cooper, through the mouth of Bumpo, strongly condemns the war unleashed by the colonialists. He emphasizes the pointlessness of death in this battle, both Indians and whites. A significant place in the work is given to the lyrical line. Leather Stocking is in love with Mabel Dunham. The girl appreciates the nobility and courage of the scout, but still goes to Jasper, who is close to her in character and age. Disappointed, Natty drives west.
"Pioneers"
This is the most problematic novel that James Fenimore Cooper has written. The Pioneers describe the life of a Leather Stocking at the age of seventy. But despite this, Bumpo has not yet lost his vigilance, and his hand is still firm. Chingachgook is still nearby, only from a mighty and wise leader he turned into a drunken decrepit old man. Both heroes are in the settlement of the colonists, where the laws of a "civilized" society operate. The central conflict of the novel lies in the opposition of contrived social orders and natural laws of nature. At the end of the novel, Chingachgook dies. Bumpo leaves the settlement and hides in the forest.
"Prairie"
The final part of the pentalogy by James Fenimore Cooper. Prairie tells the story of Nathaniel's life in old age. Bumpo has new friends. But now he helps them not with a well-aimed shot, but with great life experience, the ability to conduct a conversation with a harsh Indian leader and hide from a natural disaster. Natty and friends confront the Bush family of settlers and the Sioux Indians. But the adventurous plot ends quite well - a double wedding. The finale of the work describes a heartfelt and solemn scene of the last moments of Bumpo's life and his death.
Conclusion
James Fenimore Cooper, whose biography was presented above, left behind a vast literary legacy. He wrote 33 novels, as well as several volumes of travel notes, journalism, historical research and pamphlets. Cooper played a huge role in the development of the American novel, inventing several of its subgenres: utopian, satirical-fantastic, social, everyday, marine, historical. The writer's works were characterized by an epic reflection of the world. This is what contributed to the unification of a number of his novels into cycles: dilogy, trilogy, pentalogy.
In his work, James Fenimore Cooper covered three main themes: the life of the frontier, the sea and the war of independence. This choice reveals the romantic basis of his method. American society, overwhelmed by the thirst for profit, he opposes the freedom of the sea and soldier's heroism. This gap between reality and the romantic ideal is at the heart of the artistic and ideological design of any work of Cooper.
COOPER James Fenimore(1789-1851), American writer. Combined elements of enlightenment and romanticism. Historical and adventure novels about the War of Independence in the North. America, the era of the frontier, sea voyages ("The Spy", 1821; pentalogy about the Leather Stocking, including "The Last of the Mohicans", 1826, "St. John's Wort", 1841; "Pilot", 1823). Socio-political satire (novel "Monikina", 1835) and journalism (pamphlet treatise "American Democrat", 1838).
* * *
COOPER James Fenimore (September 15, 1789, Burlington, New Jersey - September 14, 1851, Cooperstown, NY), American writer.
First steps in literature
The author of 33 novels, Fenimore Cooper became the first American writer to be unconditionally and widely recognized by the cultural milieu of the Old World, including Russia. Balzac, reading his novels, by his own admission, growled with pleasure. Thackeray put Cooper above Walter Scott, repeating in this case the responses of Lermontov and Belinsky, who generally likened him to Cervantes and even Homer. Pushkin noted Cooper's rich poetic imagination.
He took up professional literary activity relatively late, already at the age of 30, and in general, as if by accident. If you believe the legends, which inevitably overgrow the life of a major personality, he wrote his first novel ("Precaution", 1820) on a dispute with his wife. And before that, the biography took shape quite routinely. The son of a landowner who got rich during the years of 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, a hundred miles north-west of New York, where a "frontier" took place at that time - a concept in The New World is not only geographic, but to a large extent socio-psychological - between the already developed territories and the wild, pristine lands of the aborigines. Thus, from an early age, he became a living witness to the dramatic, if not bloody, growth of American civilization, cutting farther and farther to the west. The heroes of his future books - pioneer squatters, Indians, farmers who became large planters overnight - he knew firsthand. In 1803, at the age of 14, Cooper entered Yale University, from where he was, however, expelled for some disciplinary offense. This was followed by a seven-year service in the navy - first merchant, then military. Cooper continued, having already made himself a resounding literary name, did not abandon his practical activities. In the years 1826-1833, he served as the American consul in Lyon, albeit rather nominally. In any case, during these years he traveled a considerable part of Europe, settling for a long time, in addition to France, in England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium. In the summer of 1828, he was getting ready to go to Russia, but this plan was never destined to come true. All this motley life experience, one way or another, was reflected in his work, however, with a different measure of artistic persuasiveness.
Natty Bumpo
Cooper owes his worldwide fame not to the so-called trilogy about land rent (The Devil's Finger, 1845, The Surveyor, 1845, The Redskins, 1846), where the old barons, land aristocrats, are opposed to greedy businessmen who are not constrained by any moral prohibitions, and not another trilogy inspired by the legends and reality of the European Middle Ages (Bravo, 1831, Heidenmauer, 1832, The Executioner, 1833), and not numerous naval novels (The Red Corsair, 1828, The Sea Sorceress, 1830 , and others), and even more so not to satyrs, like "Monikons" (1835), as well as the two journalistic novels "Home" (1838) and "Home" (1838), which are adjacent to them in terms of problems. This is generally a topical polemic on domestic American topics, a response from the writer to critics who accused him of a lack of patriotism, which really should have hurt him painfully - after all, he was left behind The Spy (1821) - a clearly patriotic novel from the times of the American Revolution. The Monikins have even been compared to Gulliver's Travels, but Cooper clearly lacks either Swift's imagination or Swift's wit; here a tendency that kills all artistry is too obvious. In general, oddly enough, Cooper was more successful in confronting his enemies not as a writer, but simply as a citizen who, on occasion, could appeal to the courts. Indeed, he won more than one case, defending his honor and dignity in court against the illegible newspaper pamphleteers and even fellow countrymen, who decided at the meeting to withdraw his books from the library of his native Cooperstown. The reputation of Cooper, a classic of national and world literature, firmly rests on the pentalogy of Natty Bumpo - Leather Stocking (they call him, however, differently - St. John's Wort, Hawkeye, Pathfinder, Long Carabiner). For all the cursive writing of the author, the work on this work stretched out, albeit with long interruptions, for seventeen years. Against a rich historical background, it traces the fate of a man paving the paths and highways of American civilization and at the same time tragically experiencing major moral costs of this path. As Gorky shrewdly noticed in his time, Cooper's hero "unconsciously served a great cause ... the spread of material culture in the country of wild people and - turned out to be unable to live in the conditions of this culture ...".
Pentalogy
The sequence of events in this first epic on American soil is knocked down. In his opening novel "Pioneers" (1823), the action takes place in 1793, and Natty Bumpo appears as a hunter already leaning towards the end of life, who does not understand the language and customs of modern times. In the next novel of the cycle "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826), the action is transferred forty years ago. Behind it - "Prairie" (1827), chronologically directly adjacent to the "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 "Pathfinder" (1840) and "St. John's Wort" (1841) present pure pastoral, unalloyed poetry, which the author finds 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 his critical essay Enlightenment and Literature in America (1828), clothed in the form of a letter to the fictional Abbot Jiromachi, Cooper complained that the printer in America appeared before the writer, while the romantic writer was deprived of chronicles and dark legends. He himself compensated for this shortage. Under his pen, the characters and morals of the frontier acquire an ineffable poetic charm. Of course, Pushkin was right when he remarked in the article "John Tenner" that the Cooper Indians are fanned with a romantic flair that deprives them of their pronounced individual properties. But the novelist, it seems, did not strive for the accuracy of the portrait, preferring poetic invention to the truth of fact, which, by the way, was later ironically written by Mark Twain in his famous pamphlet "The Literary Sins of Fenimore Cooper."
Nevertheless, he felt a commitment to historical reality, as he himself said in the preface to The Pioneers. A sharp inner conflict between a high dream and reality, between nature, embodying the highest truth, and progress - a conflict of a characteristic romantic nature and constitutes the main dramatic interest of pentalogy.
With a piercing acuteness, this conflict reveals itself in the pages of "Leather Stocking", clearly the most powerful thing in the pentalogy and in all of Cooper's legacy. Putting at the center of the narrative one of the episodes of the so-called Seven Years War (1757-1763) between the British and French for possessions in Canada, the author leads it swiftly, saturating it with a mass of adventures, partly of a detective nature, which made the novel a favorite children's reading for many generations. But this is not children's literature.
Chingachgook
Perhaps that is also why the images of Indians, in this case Chingachgook, one of the two main characters of the novel, turned out to be lyrically blurred by Cooper, which was more important than persons for him were general concepts - a tribe, a clan, history with its own mythology, way of life, language. It is this powerful layer of human culture, which is based on a kindred closeness to nature, and is leaving, as evidenced by the death of the son of Chingachguk Uncas, the last of the Mohicans. This loss is catastrophic. But it is not hopeless, which is generally not characteristic of American romanticism. Cooper translates the tragedy into a mythological plan, and the myth, in fact, does not know a clear boundary between life and death, it is not for nothing that Leather Stocking is also not just a person, but the hero of the myth - the myth of early American history, solemnly and confidently says that the young man Uncas leaves only for time.
Pain of a writer
Man before the judgment of nature is the inner theme of The Last of the Mokigan. Reaching out to her greatness, albeit sometimes unkind, is not given to a person, but he is constantly forced to solve this unsolvable problem. Everything else - the fights of the Indians with the pale-faced, the battles of the British with the French, colorful clothes, ritual dances, ambushes, caves, etc. - this is just an entourage.
It was painful for Cooper to see how the root America, which his beloved hero embodies, is leaving before our eyes, being replaced by a completely different America, where speculators and crooks rule the ball. That is why, probably, the writer once dropped with bitterness: "I parted with my country." But over time, it became clear that his contemporaries, compatriots, who reproached the writer for anti-patriotic sentiments, did not notice that discrepancy is a form of moral self-esteem, and longing for the past is a secret belief in a continuation that has no end.
English James fenimore cooper
American novelist and satirist, classic of adventure literature
Fenimore Cooper
short biography
American novelist, the first New World writer whose work was recognized by the Old World and became a powerful impetus for the further development of the American novel.
His homeland was Burlington (New Jersey), where he was born on September 15, 1789 in a family headed by a judge, congressman, and a large landowner. He became the founder of Cooperstown, New York, which quickly became a small town. There, James Fenimore was educated at a local school, and, as a 14-year-old teenager, became a student at Yale University. It was not possible to get a higher education, because for misconduct, Cooper was expelled from the alma mater.
During 1806-1811. the future writer served in the merchant, later in the navy. In particular, he had a chance to participate in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario. The knowledge and impressions gained later helped him please the audience with excellent descriptions of the lake in his works.
In 1811, Cooper became a family man, and Delana, a Frenchwoman, became his wife. It was thanks to an accidental dispute with her, as legend has it, that James Fenimore tried himself as a writer. The reason allegedly was the phrase dropped by him while reading aloud someone's novel, that it is not difficult to write better. As a result, just a few weeks later, the novel "Precaution" was written, which takes place in England. It happened in 1820. The debut went unnoticed by the public. But already in 1821, The Spy, or the Tale of a Neutral Territory, was published, romanticizing the period of the American Revolution and the struggle for national independence, and the author became famous not only in his homeland, but also in European countries.
The cycle of novels written in subsequent years "The Pioneers, or the Origins of Sasquianna" (1823), "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826), "Prairie" (1827), "Pathfinder, or Lake-Sea" (1840), "St. John's Wort, or the First warpath "(1841), dedicated to the American Indians and their relationship with Europeans, made James Fenimore Cooper famous throughout the world. The somewhat idealized image of the hunter Natty Bumpo, no less interesting images of Chingachgook and some other "children of nature" quickly aroused general sympathy for themselves. The success of the series of novels was enormous, and even harsh British critics, who called him the American Walter Scott, were forced to admit it.
Even after becoming a famous writer, J.F. Cooper was not exclusively concerned with literature. In 1826-1833. his biography is associated with a large-scale travel across the European continent as an American consul in French Lyon (the position was rather nominal than requiring active work). Cooper visited not only France, but also Germany, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy.
Gained fame and the so-called. nautical novels, in particular, The Pilot (1823), The Red Corsair (1828), The Sea Sorceress (1830), Mercedes from Castile (1840). There is in the creative heritage of J.F. Cooper's works of historical, political, journalistic nature. Published by him in 1839, The History of the American Navy, characterized by a desire for impartiality, turned against him both the Americans and the British. In particular, the residents of Cooperstown decided to remove all the books of the famous countryman from the local library. Litigation with them, with the journalistic fraternity took away a lot of Cooper's strength and health in the last years of his life. He died on September 14, 1851, the cause of death was called cirrhosis of the liver.
Biography from Wikipedia
James Fenimore Cooper(English James Fenimore Cooper; September 15, 1789, Burlington, USA - September 14, 1851, Cooperstown, USA) - American novelist and satirist. A classic of adventure literature.
Shortly after the birth of Fenimore, his father, Judge William Cooper, a fairly wealthy Quaker landowner, moved to New York and founded the Cooperstown settlement there, which turned into a small town. After receiving his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but without completing the course, entered the naval service (1806-1811) and was assigned to be in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario. We owe this circumstance to the wonderful descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario.
In 1811, Cooper married Susan Augusta Delancey, a Frenchwoman, from a family that sympathized with England during the Revolutionary War; its influence explains the relatively mild reviews of the British and the English government that are found in Cooper's early novels. Chance made him a writer. Once reading a novel aloud to his wife, Cooper noticed that it was not difficult to write better. His wife caught him at his word, and in order not to sound like a braggart, he wrote his first novel, Precaution (1820), in a few weeks.
Novels
M. Brady. Cooper(about 1850)
Assuming that due to the already beginning competition between English and American authors, English critics would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name for the first novel "Precaution" (1820) and transferred the action of this novel to England. The latter circumstance could only harm the book, which revealed the author's poor acquaintance with English life and drew very unfavorable reviews from English critics. Cooper's second novel, already from American life, was the famous The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground (1821), which had tremendous success not only in America, but also in Europe.
Then Cooper wrote a whole series of novels from American life:
- The Pioneers, or At the Beginning of Sasquihanna, 1823;
- The Last of the Mohicans, 1826;
- "Steppes", otherwise "Prairie", 1827;
- The Discoverer of Footprints, aka Pathfinder, 1840;
- "The Deer Hunter", otherwise "St. John's Wort, or the First Path of War", 1841).
In them, he portrayed the wars of the European aliens among themselves, in which they involved the American Indians, forcing the tribes to fight against each other. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natty (Nathaniel) Bumpo, acting under various names (St. John's Wort, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leather Stocking, Long Carabiner), energetic and likable, who soon became a favorite of the European public. Cooper's idealized, albeit with subtle humor and satire, usually accessible only to an adult reader, are not only this representative of European civilization, but also some of the Indians (Chingachgook, Uncas).
The success of this series of novels was so great that even English critics had to recognize Cooper's talent and called him the American Walter Scott. In 1826, Cooper traveled to Europe, where he spent seven years. This journey has resulted in several novels - Bravo or Venice, The Headsman, Mercedes of Castile - which are set in Europe.
The skill of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the brightness of descriptions of nature, from which the primal freshness of the virgin forests of America blows, the relief in the depiction of characters that stand before the reader as if they were alive - these are Cooper's merits as a novelist. He also wrote nautical novels "Pilot, or Sea History" (1823), "Red Corsair" (1827).
After Europe
Upon his return from Europe, Cooper wrote the political allegory of Monique (1835), five volumes of travel notes (1836-1838), several novels from American life (Satanstow; 1845 and others), the pamphlet The American Democrat, 1838). In addition, he also wrote "History of the United States Navy" (1839). The desire for complete impartiality revealed in this work did not satisfy either his compatriots or the British; the controversy he caused poisoned the last years of Cooper's life. Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851 from cirrhosis of the liver.
In Russia
In the early 1840s, Cooper's novels were very popular in Russia as well. The first translations into Russian were made by the children's writer A.O. Ishimova. The novel The Pathfinder (Russian translation of 1841), published in the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, aroused great public interest in particular, about which VG Belinsky expressed that it was a Shakespearean drama in the form of a novel.
Adventure novels by James Fenimore Cooper were very popular in the USSR, their author was quickly recognized by his second, rare, name Fenimore... For example, the film "The Mystery of Fenimore", the third episode of the children's television mini-series "Three Merry Shifts" in 1977 based on the stories of Y. Yakovlev, tells about a mysterious stranger named Fenimore, who in the pioneer camp comes at night to the boys' ward and tells amazing stories about Indians and aliens.
Bibliography
- 1820
:
- composes for his daughters the traditional morality novel Precaution.
- 1821
:
- historical novel "The Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground" (The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground), based on local lore. The novel poeticizes the era of the American Revolution and its ordinary heroes. "Spy" gets international recognition. Cooper moved with his family to New York, where he soon became a prominent literary figure and a leader of writers who championed the national identity of American literature.
- 1823
:
- the fourth part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo "Pioneers, or at the origins of Sasquihanna"
- short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
- The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea, the first of Cooper's many adventures at sea.
- 1825
:
- the novel Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston.
- 1826
:
- the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo, Cooper's most popular novel, which has become a household name, is The Last of the Mohicans.
- 1827
:
- the fifth part of the pentalogy is the novel "The Steppes", otherwise "The Prairie".
- nautical novel The Red Rover.
- 1828 :
- Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
- 1829
:
- the novel "The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish", dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of the American colonists of the 17th century with the Indians.
- 1830
:
- the 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) is a novel from the distant past of Venice.
- 1832
:
- The second part of The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine trilogy is a historical novel from the early Reformation in Germany.
- short stories (No Steamboats)
- 1833
:
- The third part of the trilogy "The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons" is an 18th century legend 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 enlightenment allegorism and satire of J. Swift.
- 1836
:
- memoir (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 "American Democrat" (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
- Hommeward 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 the excellent mastery of the material and love for sailing.
- Old ironsides
- 1840
:
- "The Pathfinder, or The inland sea" - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumpo
- a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus, Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay.
- 1841
:
- John's Wort, or The First Warpath, or The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath is the first part of the pentalogy.
- 1842
:
- the novel "The two admirals", which tells an episode from the history of the British fleet, which was waging a war with France in 1745
- a novel about French privateering, Wing-and-Wing (or Le feu-follet).
- 1843
:
- the novel Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale about the American Revolution in the wilderness 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
:
- Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale
- and its sequel, Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore, where the protagonist is autobiographical.
- Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, & c.
- 1845
:
- two installments of the Land Rent Trilogy: Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony and The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts.
- 1846
:
- the third part of the trilogy is the novel "Redskins" (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
:
- late Cooper's pessimism is expressed in The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific, an allegorical history of the United States.
- 1848
:
- the novel "The Oak Grove" or "The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter" is from the history of the Anglo-American War of 1812.
- Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
- 1849
:
- Cooper's latest maritime novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, is about a shipwreck that befell sealers 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) - unfinished work on the history of New York.
James Fenimore Cooper. Born September 15, 1789 in Burlington, USA - died September 14, 1851 in Cooperstown, USA. American novelist and satirist. A classic of adventure literature.
Shortly after the birth of Fenimore, his father, Judge William Cooper, a fairly wealthy landowner, moved to New York State and founded the Cooperstown settlement there, which turned into a small town. After receiving his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but without completing the course, entered the naval service (1806-1811) and was assigned to be in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario.
We owe this circumstance to the wonderful descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario.
In 1811, Cooper married Susan Augusta Delancey, a Frenchwoman, from a family that sympathized with England during the Revolutionary War; its influence explains the relatively mild reviews of the British and the English government that are found in Cooper's early novels. Chance made him a writer. Once reading a novel aloud to his wife, Cooper noticed that it was not difficult to write better. His wife took him at his word, and in order not to sound like a braggart, he wrote his first novel, Precaution (1820), in a few weeks.
Assuming that due to the already beginning competition between English and American authors, English critics would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name for the first novel "Precaution" (1820) and transferred the action of this novel to England. The latter circumstance could only harm the book, which revealed the author's poor acquaintance with English life and drew very unfavorable reviews from English critics.
Cooper's second novel, already from American life, was the famous "The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground" (1821), which had tremendous success not only in America, but also in Europe.
Then Cooper wrote a whole series of novels from American life (The Pioneers, or At the Beginning of Sasquihanna, 1823; The Last of the Mohicans, 1826; The Barrens, aka Prairie, 1827; The Discoverer of Footprints, aka Pathfinder, 1840; "The Deer Hunter", otherwise "St. John's Wort, or the First Warpath", 1841), where he depicted the wars of the European aliens among themselves, in which they involved the American Indians, forcing the tribes to fight against each other. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natty (Nathanael) Bumpo, acting under various names (St. John's Wort, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leather Stocking, Long Carabiner), energetic and likable, who soon became a favorite of the European public. Cooper's idealized, albeit with subtle humor and satire, usually accessible only to an adult reader, are not only this representative of European civilization, but also some of the Indians (Chingachgook, Uncas).
The success of this series of novels was so great that even English critics had to recognize Cooper's talent and called him American. In 1826, Cooper traveled to Europe, where he spent seven years. This journey has resulted in several novels - Bravo or Venice, The Headsman, Mercedes of Castile - which are set in Europe.
The skill of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the brightness of descriptions of nature, from which the primal freshness of the virgin forests of America blows, the relief in the depiction of characters that stand before the reader as if they were alive - these are Cooper's merits as a novelist. He also wrote nautical novels "Pilot, or Sea History" (1823), "Red Corsair" (1827).
Upon his return from Europe, Cooper wrote the political allegory of Monique (1835), five volumes of travel notes (1836-1838), several novels from American life (Satanstow; 1845 and others), the pamphlet The American Democrat, 1838). In addition, he also wrote "History of the United States Navy" (1839). The desire for complete impartiality revealed in this work did not satisfy either his compatriots or the British; the controversy he caused poisoned the last years of Cooper's life.
In the early 1840s, Cooper's novels were very popular in Russia as well. The first translations into Russian were made by the children's writer A.O. Ishimova. The novel The Pathfinder (Russian translation of 1841), published in the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, aroused great public interest in particular. It was described as a Shakespearean drama in the form of a novel.
Adventure novels by James Fenimore Cooper were very popular in the USSR, their author was quickly recognized by his second, rare, name Fenimorruen. For example, in the film "The Mystery of Fenimore", the third episode of the children's television mini-series "Three Merry Shifts" in 1977 based on the stories of Y. Yakovlev, it tells about a mysterious stranger named Fenimore, who in a pioneer camp comes at night to the boys' ward and tells amazing stories about Indians and aliens.
Bibliography of Fenimore Cooper:
1820 - Precaution
1821 - The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground
1823 - Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart
1823 - The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea
1825 - Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston
1826 - The Last of the Mohicans
1827 - "The Steppes", aka "Prairie" (The Prairie)
1827 - The Red Rover
1828 - Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829 - The wept of Wish-ton-Wish
1830 - The Water-Witch: or the Skimmer of the Seas
1830 - Letter to General Lafayette politics
1831 - "Bravo, or in Venice" (The bravo)
1832 - The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine
1832 - short stories (No Steamboats)
1833 - The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons
1834 - A Letter to His Countrymen
1835 - The Monikins
1836 - Memoirs (The Eclipse)
1836 - Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland (Sketches of Switzerland)
1836 - Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine
1836 - A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland
1837 - Gleanings in Europe: France travel
1837 - Gleanings in Europe: England travel
1838 - pamphlet "American Democrat" (The American Democrat: or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America)
1838 - Gleanings in Europe: Italy travel
1838 - The Chronicles of Cooperstown
1838 - Hommeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
1838 - Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound
1839 - The History of the Navy of the United States of America
1839 - Old Ironsides
1840 - The Pathfinder, or The inland sea
1840 - Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay
1841 - The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath
1842 - The two admirals
1842 - Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet
1843 - Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale
1843 - Richard Dale
1843 - 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 - Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale
1844 - Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore
1844 - Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, & c
1845 - Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony
1845 - The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts
1846 - The Redskins (or, Indian and Injin: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts)
1846 - Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers biography
1847 - The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak: A Tale of the Pacific
1848 - The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter
1848 - Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
1849 - The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers
1850 - The ways of the hour
1850 - play (Upside Down: or Philosophy in Petticoats), satirization of socialism
1851 - short story by The Lake Gun
1851 - New York: or The Towns of Manhattan (unfinished work on the history of New York)