More Cooper Links

Digitized Texts by Cooper in English

General

One of the most useful general links to Cooper materials is Internet Archive, which holds literally hundreds of citations to texts of books by and about Cooper. It does contain some duplication, and it is sometimes hard to identify specific editions etc., from the link page. But once found, each text can accessed in a variety of searchable formats, including “Flip Book”.

Google Books

Another rapidly growing source for facsimile copies of earlier Cooper texts is Google Books . This particular link includes only out-of-copyright editions (currently 83) of books by James Fenimore Cooper which are available at Google in “full view”.

Novels

Note: We do not necessarily list all online texts of a particular novel, as the number keeps growing.

Non-Fiction, Articles, Short Stories

  • (1850) Upside Down; or, Philosophy in Petticoats . Only surviving scene from a play. Annotated text on this website.
  • (1850) The Lake Gun. Short Story. Gutenberg Project (annotated text file). Also on this website at: The Lake Gun.
  • (1851) New York. Introduction to the never-completed history, The Towns of Manhattan. Gutenberg Project (annotated text file). Also on this website at New York.
  • (1850) New York. Introduction to the never-completed history, The Towns of Manhattan. Page by Page Books.
  • (1851) American and European Scenery Compared. The International magazine of literature, art, and science, Volume 4, Issue 5 (December 1851), pp. 625-631. From The Home Book of the Picturesque (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1852), pp. 51-69. Making of America Text, page images. [Link no longer extant. – Ed.]
  • (1852) American and European Scenery Compared. The Home Book of the Picturesque (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1852), pp. 51-59. Library of Congress.
  • (1853) Old Ironsides. [Link no longer extant. – Ed.] [composed ca. 1850]. Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art, Vol. 1, Nos. 5-6 (May-June 1853), pp. 473-487, 593-607. Making of American Text, page images. Unfinished history of the U.S. Frigate Constitution. Available here at Old Ironsides.
  • (1864) History of the Navy of the United States of America, continued to 1860 from the Author’s Manuscripts and other Authentic Sources . Three Volumes in One. New York: Blakeman & Mason, 1864 (copyright 1853). Late edition of Cooper’s Naval History (first edition 1839). Google Books
  • (1868) Fragments from a Diary of James Fenimore Cooper. Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art Volume 11, No. 2 (February 1868), pp. 167-172. Making of American Text, page images. Excerpts, annotated by Susan Fenimore Cooper, from Cooper’s journal, Paris, Sept. 19-29, 1830 (General La Fayette and current events).
  • (1868) Passages from a Diary of James Fenimore Cooper. Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art Volume 11, No. 6 (June 1868), pp. 730-737. Making of American Text, page images. Excerpts, annotated by Susan Fenimore Cooper, from Cooper’s journal, Switzerland, July 14-Aug. 24, 1828 (travel).
  • (1869) The Battle of Plattsburgh Bay [composed ca. 1845]. Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art, Volume 13, No. 13 (January 1869), pp. 49-59. Making of American Text, page images. Lecture on the 1814 Lake Champlain naval battle, prepared for the New-York Historical Society; edited by Susan Fenimore Cooper.
  • (1869) The Eclipse [composed ca. 1836]. Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art, Volume 14, No. 21 (September 1869), pp. 352-359. Making of American Text, page images. Manuscript account of an 1806 total solar eclipse in Cooperstown. Edited (and misdated ca. 1831) by Susan Fenimore Cooper.
  • (1869) The Eclipse. The same, placed online by the University of Virginia.

Correspondence

  • (1922) James Fenimore Cooper [grandson], ed., Correspondence of James Fenimore-CooperVolume I (including Susan Fenimore Cooper, Small Family Memories); Volume II New Haven: Yale University press, 1922. [Note: May require DJVu Plugin (free); scanning sometimes inaccurate, missing lines at head or foot of page.]
  • (1922) James Fenimore Cooper [grandson], ed., Correspondence of James Fenimore-CooperVolume I (including Susan Fenimore Cooper, Small Family Memories); Volume II. Making of America — New Haven: Yale University press, 1922

Digitized Texts in French

The French National Library website Gallica has placed some 46 Cooper novels and other works, in French translation, online. They can be accessed at the Gallica website by: (1) click on “Recherche”; (2) enter “Fenimore” or “Fenimore Cooper” in the box marked “Auteur”; click on “Rechercher”. The volumes include a complete 30 volume set of Cooper’s novels as published by Fume, C. Gosselin; and then by Fume, Pagnerre, et Perrotin, between 1839 and 1854 (look for Oeuvres), some 15 other novel translations, and some non-fiction including Ned Myers (La Vie d’un Matelot), Gleanings in Europe: France, and Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine. You can go straight to a list at List of Cooper Books.

In addition, there are several significant periodical items.

Digitized Texts in Finnish

Digitized Texts in Russian

  • Eight Cooper Texts in Russian
    • Leatherstocking Tales: 1. The Deerslayer; 2. The Last of the Mohicans; 3. The Pathfinder; 4. The Pioneers; 5. The Prairie
    • Other Novels: 1. The Bravo; 2. Lionel Lincoln; 3. The Spy

Digitized Texts in German

Other Digital Tools

  • Internet Public Library, Online Literary Research Collection: James Fenimore Cooper. A variety of Cooper links (articles, websites, etc.).

Student Assistance Sites

Whether “student note” sites are helpful or harmful to real study may well be debated; some sites are really trying to sell papers to would-be plagiarists. Nevertheless we have found a couple of sites dealing with The Last of the Mohicans, with canned biographies of Cooper, summaries (short and chapter-by-chapter) of the novel, and other information. We provide links for what they may be worth, and because we seek to be complete, but such links do not constitute recommendations in any sense. The James Fenimore Cooper Society is happy to assist students whenever it can, though we will not provide canned answers. Just send your email questions to Ask Fenimore.

  • Classic Notes. This is from the GradeSaver Resource Center website, written by “Harvard graduates.”
  • SparkNotes. From the SparkNotes.com website. Written by “Harvard students and graduates.”

There is also an interesting collections of detailed plot summaries of Cooper novels, put online by Antiques Digest!

Early Reviews of Cooper’s Works

Books about Cooper

Articles and Papers

  • (1853) Call for Contributions to the Cooper Monument. Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art, Volume 1, Issue 1 (January 1853), p. 107. Making of America Text, page images.
  • (1856) Entry on Cooper from Cyclopaedia of American Literature, pp. 108-118 (New York: Charles Scribner, 1856).
  • (1856) J.F. Hurst, A Day in Cooperstown — The Home of J. Fennimore Cooper. Ladies’ Repository, Volume 16, Issue 2 (February 1856), pp. 106-107. Making of America Text, page images.
  • (1871) Constance Fenimore Woolson, The Haunted Lake. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volume 44, Issue 259 (December 1871), pp. 20-23. Illustrated article on Cooper and Cooperstown by his grand-niece. Making of America Text, page images.
  • (1872) J. Fenimore Cooper. Review of Cooper’s life and works. Appleton’s Journal, Volume 7, Issue 164 (May 18, 1872), pp. 548-551. Making of America Text, page images.
  • (1874) Mr. Winter, Leatherstocking on the Stage. Review of play version of The Last of the Mohicans, at Niblo’s Theatre, New York City. Appleton’s Journal, Volume 11, Issue 260 (May 14, 1874), p. 339. Making of America Text, page images.
  • (1874) John Esten Cooke, Cooper’s Indians. Favorable discussion of Cooper’s treatment of Indians. Appleton’s Journal, Volume 12, Issue 284 (August 29, 1874), pp. 264-267. Making of America Text, page images.
  • (1895) Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences [also at University of Virginia] and Fenimore Cooper’s Further Literary Offenses: Cooper’s Prose Style”. Mark Twain’s famous denunciation (on the basis of deliberately fabricated evidence) of Cooper’s writing style in The Deerslayer [See Other Writers, under Twain, for articles in rebuttal; most notably Lance Schachterle and Kent Ljungquist (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Defenses: Twain and the Text of The Deerslayer . Joel Myerson, ed., Studies in the American Renaissance 1988, pp. 401-417. Point-by-point exposé of deliberate fabrications in Mark Twain’s notorious “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” (1895). And see Twain’s Indians for an online selection and analysis of Twain’s own writings about Native Americans.]
  • (1909) Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle’s Laugh and Other Surprises, Chapter V: James Fenimore Cooper, pp. 45-54. Google Books text.
  • (1921) Carl Van Doren, The American Novel — Chapter II. James Fenimore Cooper. Appraisal of Cooper’s place in American literature. Text from Bartleby.com, Great Books online. Other sections of the book may also be relevant.
  • (1923) D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classical American Literature, especially Chapter IV ( Fenimore Cooper’s White Novels) and Chapter V ( Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Novels). Although uneven in spots [Lawrence even confuses Lake Otsego with Lake Champlain], these essays marked the beginning of the 20ᵗʰ century renaissance in Cooper studies, and are still well worth reading. (University of Virginia text).
  • (1930) Tremaine McDowell, James Fenimore Cooper as Self-Critic. Studies in Philology (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), Volume 27 (1930), pp. 508-516. Article on Cooper’s 1831 revisions of The Spy. Page images at The French National Library website.
  • (1972) Peggy Craven Burkhardt, Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Defenses. Ph. D Thesis, University of Iowa.
  • (1976) J. Gerald Kennedy (Louisiana State University), Cooper’s Anti-Intellectualism: The Comic Man of Learning. Studies in American Humor, October 1976, Volume III (Old Series), No. 2.
  • (1988) Constantine Evans, James Fenimore Cooper: Young Man to Author. Syracuse University. The Courier, Volume 23, No. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 55-77. Paper 238. Biographic information on Cooper’s youth.
  • (1989) Constantine Evans, An Unpublished Reminiscence of James Fenimore Cooper. Syracuse University. The Courier, Volume 24, No. 2, Fall 1989, pp. 45-53. Paper 229. Manuscript reminiscence by William Mather (1802-1890), apparently written ca. 1889.
  • (1982) Leland Krauth (University of Colorado), Laughter in The Pioneers. Studies in American Humor, October 1982, Volume I (New Series), No. 2.
  • (1992) Constantine Evans (University of Rhode Island), Fenimore Cooper’s Libel Suits. Syracuse University. Library Associates Courier, No. 27, No. 2 (Fall 1992), pp. 47-74. Paper 282.
  • (1997) Tracy A. Cummings (Lehigh University), Cooper and Cole: Comments on the Power of Nature in The Last of the Mohicans. Essay written for Prof. Edward J. Gallagher’s “America’s Many Beginnings” course at Lehigh University, Fall 1997. Thomas Cole’s paintings illustrating Cooper’s novel.
  • (1998) Georgio Mariani (University of Salerno), L’ultimo dei mohicani: il romanzo, il film, e il problema dell’identità nazionale [ The Last of the Mohicans: the novel, the film, and the problem of national identity]. From Revista Internazionale di Studi Nordamericani Acoma, No.12 (Winter 1998), pp. 27-36. [PDF file]
  • (1998) Anna Scannavini (University of Rome), Cooper e l’ultimo dei mohicani [ Cooper and The Last of the Mohicans]. From Revista Internazionale di Studi Nordamericani Acoma, No.12 (Winter 1998), pp. 14-26. [PDF file]
  • (1998) Mr. Twain’s Critiquing Offenses. A light-hearted turning against himself of Mark Twain’s famous 1895 critique of Cooper. On the “On the Trail of The Last of the Mohicans” website, run by fans of the 1992 Michael Mann movie.
  • (1999) Richard Gravil, James Fenimore Cooper and the Spectre of Edmund Burke. From Romanticism on the Net May 1999. “Haunted by Burke from the outset of his career, Cooper became more Burkean than Burke himself.”
  • (2000) Alain Korkos, Le Dernier des Mohicans. Short article on the influence of Cooper on one young Frenchman (in French).
  • (2001) Barbara Buchenau (University of Göttingen), Comparativist Interpretations of the Frontier in Early American Fiction and Literary Historiography . From CLC Web: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal (Purdue University), Vol. 3, No. 2 (June 2001). Literary studies of the frontier tend to ignore works, like Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s Hope Leslie, and James Fenimore Cooper’s The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish that do not fit their preconceived pattern.
  • (2001) Jean-Michel Racault (University of La Réunion), Le volcan dans l’Ile ou l’interprétation d’une catastrophe. Robinsonnade, utopie et histoire dans le “Cratère” de Fennimore Cooper et “L’Ile mystérieuse de Jules Verne (The Volcano in the Island, or the interpretation of a catastrophe. Robinsonnade, utopia and history in “The Crater” of Fenimore Cooper and “The Mysterious Island” of Jules Verne). Summary and audio. (Centre de Recherches sur la Littérature des Voyages of the Université de Paris-Sorbonne) [Link no longer extant. – Ed.]
  • (2003) Ryoichi Okada (Niigata University), Cooper and Hawthorne As America’s Cultural Countercurrent. Prof. Okada (a long-time Cooper Society member), states that his purpose is to disclose the fundamental similarity between the literature of Cooper and Hawthorne.
  • Adriana Rissetto, Romancing the Indian: Sentimentalizing and Demonizing in Cooper and Twain. A University of Virginia hypertext discussion of Indians in 19ᵗʰ Century American Literature.
  • Cooper’s Indians . A University of Virginia hypertext discussion of Cooper’s writings about Indians, with excerpts (and old illustrations) from The Last of the Mohicans and Notions of the Americans.

Cooper Archives and Other Reference Sites

  • Christ Churchyard . Tombstones (alphabetically by surname) in Christ Episcopal Churchyard, Cooperstown (including the Cooper Family plot), as of ca. 1943.
  • American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. One of the major Cooper collections of early editions and of Cooper manuscripts and letters. Its holdings of early Cooper editions (some 841 entries) can be searched by telnet. Go to Connecting to Online Catalogues, review or download the “online guide to searching the catalogs,” and follow the instructions.
  • Itemized list of letters and manuscripts in the University of Virginia
  • Detailed inventory of the Judge William Cooper Papers at the Paul F. Cooper Jr. Archives, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY. See also Judge William Cooper: Related Research, a  collection of documents, articles, research papers, and general information relating to the Judge William Cooper Papers.
  • OTSEGO COUNTY NEW YORK Genealogy and History website . A large and growing website with historical materials about Cooperstown and Otsego County, New York.
  • The George Palmer Putnam collection at Princeton University. A few Cooper items (JFC and SFC).

Other Important Cooper Websites

  • The Cooper Edition, Editor-in-Chief, Lance Schachterle. The Scholarly Edition of Cooper’s Works, revived in 2002 and currently publishing with AMS Press, Inc. See its The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper Website.
  • American Authors, directed by Prof. Donna Campbell, Department of English, Washington State University: James Fenimore Cooper. Biographic material, links, and other information. Prof. Campbell also has a very useful page discussing the early American novel, and Cooper’s place in it, at: The Early American Novel: Introductory Notes
  • Books and Writers: James Fenimore Cooper . Brief biography by Petri Liukkonen (Finland) and bibliography.
  • James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) at the All American: Literature, History, and Culture Internet Encyclopedia established by Professor Mark Canada of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Detailed survey of Cooper’s life and literary contributions, with links. See also his 2002 Course Segment on Cooper, The Pioneer concentrating on The Pioneers.
  • PAL: Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide, directed by Prof. Paul P. Reuben, Department of English, California State University at Stanislaus: James Fenimore Cooper. Bibliography, themes, etc.
  • The Classic Text: Traditions and Interpretations. James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. From a 1997 exhibit of “literary classics” at the Golda Meir Library of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, including facsimiles of pages from eight important editions of Mohicans from 1826-1950.
  • The Hamilton and Scourge Project . Website devoted to the underwater archaeology of two sunken War of 1812 ships — the primary account of whose fate is Cooper’s Ned Myers (1843), which is quoted as the primary source.
  • OldandSold Articles Website. Detailed summaries of the plots of Cooper’s novels
  • James Fenimore Cooper: A Literary Pioneer . Concise student-established (2000) website on Cooper and his frontier stories.

Websites for Authors and Illustrators Having Cooper Connections

  • In 1998 Gérard Macé, a distinguished French poet/essayist, published his luminous and beautiful Le Dernier des Egyptiens, showing how Natty Bumppo’s search for signs in the wilderness helped inspire Champollion’s search for signs in Egyptian hieroglyphics and his ultimate translation of the Rosetta Stone. A useful site is Chasseurs des Signes (in French).
  • Karl May Gesellschaft - English Home Page . Karl May (1842-1912) was a German author who wrote over 60 enormously popular novels, many relating to Cooper’s frontier tales. Every German Cooper fan knows and has read Karl May.
  • F.O.C. Darley . Website devoted to Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-1888), usually known as F.O.C. Darley, whose illustrations for the 1859-1861 W.A. Townsend and Co. edition of Cooper’s works are the best known illustrations covering all of Cooper’s 32 novels.
  • Constance Fenimore Woolson Society . Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894), a grand-niece of Cooper, was an important novelist and short-story writer, with connections in Cooperstown.
  • Catharine Maria Sedgwick Society . Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867) was a contemporary of Coopers, with both thematic and biographic links to him, and a pioneer American novelist.
  • Susan Fenimore Cooper . Until the creation of an SFC Society, material on Cooper’s daughter (1813-1894) is housed here on the James Fenimore Cooper website.

Websites of Selected Literary Organizations

Movies, Operas, and Musicals

  • Internet Movie Database (IMDb) - James Fenimore Cooper . Information on almost all Cooper-based movies, as well as links to two complete online Cooper movies: the 1936 Last of the Mohicans starring Randolph Scott, and the 1920 German-made The Deerslayer with, among others, Bela Lugosi as Chingachgook; the latter is misidentified as being a 1957 version!
  • (1998) Songs of the Neutral Ground. An innovative “Internet Musical” based on The Spy, by Norma Valborg.
  • On The Trail Of The Last Of The Mohicans . An enormous website devoted to the 1992 Michael Mann film of The Last of the Mohicans
  • (1999) Jessica Roche (Lehigh University), The Last of the Mohicans (1920). An undergraduate webpage devoted to the 1920 silent film directed by Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown. Part of a “Reel to History” project directed by Prof. Edward J. Gallagher.

Photographs and Pictures

  • (1823) Poster The Spy; or, The Neutral Ground. Poster for play based on Cooper’s novel: The Philadelphia Theatre, Dec. 11, 1823.
  • (c. 1827) Watercolor portrait of Cooper (ca. 1827) by French miniature-painter Mme. Lizinka-Aimée-Zoé Rue de Mirbel (1796-1849). In the Wallace Collection, London. An unusual portrait, in color, that we have never seen reproduced. An engraving based on the portrait (the one we use on our Society brochure) can be seen in James F. Beard’s Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper (Harvard University Press, 1961-68), Volume II, Plate VI. [Link no longer extant. – Ed.]
  • (c. 1850) Carbon reproduction of an original Daguerreotype of James Fenimore Cooper.
  • (c. 1825-1860) Complete digital collection of Illustrations for Cooper novels by F.O.C. Darley, J. Hamilton, and J.A. Hows (from Susan Fenimore Cooper, Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper (New York: W.A. Townsend and Company, 1861)). On the Karl May website noted above.
  • (c. 1830-51) A collection of Cooper letters, fragments of manuscripts, etc., online in full scale, comprising part of the “I Remain, a Digital Archive of 19 Letters, Manuscripts, and Ephemera” collection at Lehigh University.
  • New York Public Library Digital Images . Search for such things as “fenimore cooper” (69 images); or “cooperstown” (52 images, including many old stereographs).
  • Cooper’s Gravestone, Cooper Family Plot, Christ Episcopal Church, Cooperstown.
  • (1963) Picture/poster for The Last of the Mohicans , by Ken Riley, Illustrator, Cleveland: Harris-Intertype, 1963. [on Library of Congress Geography and Map Division website.]

Online Videos

  • An excellent video on James Fenimore Cooper (recorded April 2001) can be viewed at C-Span American Writers — James Fenimore Cooper. Click on “Watch the Program” and select from the full program, a walking-tour of Cooper’s Cooperstown (guided by Hugh C. McDougall, Cooper Society Secretary), and other related programs.

Online Audio Texts of Cooper Books

  • An audio text of The Spy. [Gutenberg]