Books about Cooper

Hugh C. MacDougall (Corresponding Secretary, James Fenimore Cooper Society)

Compiled by Hugh C. McDougall from books in his personal collection, this list is periodically updated. Suggestions for additions, etc., can be sent to the Cooper Society.

Authors, as generally on this website, are listed with the last name first. In each section, books are ranged chronologically, beginning with the most recent.

Most recent books listed first.

 

illiam Cooper and the History of Cooperstown

  • * Weber, Nicholas Fox, The Clarks of Cooperstown: Their Singer Sewing Machine Fortune; Their Great and influential Art Collections; Their Forty-Year Feud. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Biographies of Stephen C. and Robert S. Clark.
  • * Reisler, Jim, A Great Day in Cooperstown: The Improbable Birth of Baseball’s Hall of Fame New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006. Events of June 1939 and biographies of all concerned.
  • Jones, Louis C., and Richard S. Duncan, photographer, Cooperstown. Cooperstown: The Farmers’ Museum, 2006. 192 p., illus., boards, d.w. Though billed as the “seventh edition” of Louis Jones’ earlier book of the same name, this is a lavishly illustrated coffee-table type book, with color photographs by Richard S. Duncan, art reproductions, and historic old photographs.
  • D’Ambrosio, Paul, ed., and Richard C. Duncan, photographer, Otsego Lake: Past and Present. Cooperstown: The Farmers’ Museum, 2005. 150 p., illus., boards, d.w. Lavishly illustrated coffee-table type book with color photographs by Richard S. Duncan, and historic old photographs.
  • * Seaver, Robert B. (“The Badger”), Cooperstown, Otsego and the World as see by The Badger. Cooperstown: Pilar Press, 2005. Essays about the Cooperstown area, 1973-2003, reprinted from The Freeman’s Journal.
  • * Nielsen, Brian and Becky, Around Cooperstown in Vintage Postcards. Arcadia Publishing, 2000, reprinted 2004. Reprints of old postcards showing Cooperstown and its vicinity.
  • * Ravage, Jessie A., A Region of Romance: Otsego Lake, N.Y. Cooperstown: Smithy-Pioneer Gallery, Inc. and Otsego 2000, 1997. Illustrated account of the influence of Cooper’s novels the development of Otsego Lake as a site for tourism, camping, and summer homes
  • * Taylor, Alan, William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995 (paperback ed., Vintage Books, 1996). Pulitzer Prize-winning story of the life and career of William Cooper, the founding and early history of Cooperstown, and how James Fenimore Cooper reworked that history in The Pioneers. A major and very readable book
  • Rogers, Harriet and Marjorie Tillapaugh, Main Street Cooperstown: A Mile of Memories. Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1992. The buildings of Main Street, with old and new photographs
  • MacDougall, Hugh C., Cooper’s Otsego County. Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1989. Sites in Otsego County related to James Fenimore Cooper’s life and novels; many described in his own words
  • The Smith and Telfer Photographic Collection of the New York State Historical Association. Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1978. Historic photographs of Cooperstown and Cooperstonians.
  • Hollis, Harold, et al., History of Cooperstown. Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1976. Year- by-year chronicle of Cooperstown, as reported in Cooperstown’s weekly newspaper The Freeman’s Journal. [Incorporates earlier versions edited by Samuel H. Shaw in 1886, and by Walter R. Littell in 1929]
  • * Cooper, James Fenimore [grandson], Reminiscences of Mid-Victorian Cooperstown and Sketch of William Cooper. Cooperstown: Otsego County Historical Society, Publication No. 1, 1936 (reprinted, Cooperstown: The Smithy-Pioneer Gallery, 1986). Local history and anecdotes
  • Cooper, James Fenimore [grandson], Legends and Traditions of a Northern County. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921. Local history and anecdotes and Cooper family lore.
  • * Birdsall, Rev. Ralph, The Story of Cooperstown. Cooperstown: Arthur H. Crist, 1917 (reprinted {minus Chapter 19, “The Railroad War”} 1920, 1925, 1948, 1954; reprinted, Cooperstown: Willis Monie, 2004 [complete original edition, with new index by Hugh C. McDougall] Lively, anecdotal history with many photographs
  • Hurd, D. Hamilton, History of Otsego County, New York, 1740-1878. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1878 (reprinted: Ovid, NY: W.E. Morrison, 1978). The “standard” County History, with many engravings of homes and personalities.
  • Livermore, Rev. S.T., A Condensed History of Cooperstown, with a Biographical Sketch of J. Fenimore Cooper. Albany: J. Munsell, 1862. (reprinted, Higginson Book Company, 1997) A miscellany of useful information
  • * Cooper, Susan Fenimore [daughter], Rural Hours. New York: George A. Putnam, 1850 (reprinted, University of Georgia Press, 1998); Condensed ed. 1886 (reprinted, Syracuse University Press: 1968, paperback ed. 1996). Diary of life and nature in Cooperstown, compiled in 1848 and 1849
  • Cooper, James Fenimore, The Chronicles of Cooperstown. Cooperstown: E. & H. Phinney, 1838. First history of the village; also incorporated in works by Hollis and Livermore, cited above
  • * Cooper, William, A Guide in the Wilderness; or, the History of the First Settlements in The Western Counties of New York, with Useful Instructions to Future Settlers. Dublin: Gilbert & Hodges, 1810 (reprinted by the Cooper family, Cooperstown: 1897, 1936, 1949, 1965, 1986, ca. 2000). William Cooper’s philosophy of frontier settlement

Selected Books About ames Fenimore Cooper

Emphasizing Cooper’s ife

  • * Louras, Nick, James Fenimore Cooper: A Life. ChronoBooks, 2016. New, popular biography of Cooper.
  • * Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: The Later Years. Yale University Press, 2017. The long-awaited, detailed, and very readable second volume of Prof. Franklin’s detailed and scholarly biography
  • * Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years. Yale University Press, 2007. The long-awaited, detailed, and very readable first volume of Prof. Franklin’s detailed and scholarly biography
  • Long, Robert Emmet, James Fenimore Cooper. New York: Continuum, 1990. Comprehensive and readable survey
  • Wallace, James D., Early Cooper and His Audience. Columbia University Press, 1986. Cooper’s efforts to create an audience for American writing
  • Railton, Stephen, Fenimore Cooper: A Study of his Life and Imagination. Princeton University Press, 1978. Controversial psychoanalytic study, focussed on Cooper’s relationship with his father
  • Grossman, James, James Fenimore Cooper: A Biographical and Critical Study. Stanford University Press, 1949 (reissued 1967). A detailed literary biography
  • Clavel, Marcel, Fenimore Cooper: Sa Vie et son Oeuvre: La Jeunesse (1789-1826). Aix-en-Provence: Imprimerie Universitaire de Provence, 1938. Major study of Cooper’s early life and earlier works.
  • Boynton, Henry Walcott, James Fenimore Cooper. New York: The Century Co., 1931. A warm account, stressing Cooper’s personal life and character
  • Outland, Ethel P., The “Effingham” Libels on Cooper: A Documentary History of the Libel Suits of James Fenimore Cooper, Centering Around the Three Mile Point Controversy and the Novel HOME AS FOUND, 1837-1845. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin, 1929. Pioneering study of the “libel suits”
  • Phillips, Mary E., James Fenimore Cooper. New York: John Lane, 1913. Long out of print, but valuable for its extensive personal anecdotes, and hundreds of engravings of people and places associated with Cooper
  • Clymer, W.B. Shubrick, James Fenimore Cooper. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1908 (copyright 1900). Short biography by a relative of Cooper’s naval friend William Branford Shubrick.
  • Lounsbury, Thomas R., James Fenimore Cooper. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1883 (reprinted, New York: Chelsea House, 1981). The first full biography of Cooper, though based on limited sources
  • Cooper, Susan Fenimore [daughter]. Pages and Pictures from the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper [excerpts, with long biographical introductions]. New York: W.A. Townsend, 1861 (and several reprints). Also introductions to selected volumes of the so-called Household Edition of Cooper [often expanded biographical information] Also “Small Family Memories” in Vol. I, pp. 7-72, in James Fenimore Cooper [grandson] Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922) [All three on this website: see Memories].
  • Greene, George Washington, “Cooper” and “Personal Recollections of Cooper,” in Biographical Sketches, pp. 9-73. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1860. One of the earliest biographical studies of Cooper, by a friend. Other people covered in the book are the artists Thomas Cole and Thomas Crawford, and Washington Irving.
  • Memorial of Cooper. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1852. Proceedings of memorial meetings in New York City honoring the late author, on September 25, 1851, October 7, 1851, and February 24, 1852, including letters received. Most important are a lengthy biographical address by William Cullen Bryant, and written reminiscences by Cooper’s life-long friend and personal physician Dr. John W. Francis.

Emphasizing Cooper’s ritings

  • * Mann, Barbara Alice, The Cooper Connection: The Influence of Jane Austen on James Fenimore Cooper New York: AMS Press, 2014.
  • * Krauthammer, Anna, The Representation of the Savage in James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville. Peter Lang, 2008. The Ignoble Savage (Magua), the White Savage (Natty), the Noble Savage (Chingachgook) and Melvillian counterparts (Babo, Tom, and Queequeg) in their cultural contexts in American literature.
  • * Wegener, Signe O., James Fenimore Cooper versus the Cult of Domesticity: Progressive Themes of Femininity and Family in the Novels. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2005. Cooper’s approach to Domesticity, in the light of contemporary female novelists.
  • * Newman, Russell, T., The Gentleman in the Garden: The Influential Landscape in the Works of James Fenimore Cooper. Lexington Books, 2003. Survey of the role of landscape in Cooper’s novels.
  • * Valtiala, Kaarle-Juhani (Nalle), James Fenimore Cooper’s Landscapes in the Leather-Stocking Tales and other Forest Tales. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 1998. Cooper, landscape art, and his environmental concerns [Can be ordered through the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies Bookstore]
  • * McWilliams, John, The Last of the Mohicans: Civil Savagery and Savage Civility. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995. (Twayne’s Masterwork Studies, No. 141) Cooper’s best-known novel seen from a variety of perspectives; an excellent introduction to understanding Cooper
  • Darnell, Donald, James Fenimore Cooper: Novelist of Manners. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993. Cooper and the American social scene
  • Dudensing, Beatrix, Die Symbolik von Mündlicheit und Schriftlichkeit in James Fenimore Coopers “Leatherstocking Tales” Frankfurt-am-Mein: Peter Lang, 1993. Study of the Leatherstocking Tales
  • Suzuki, Taisuke, The Literary World of James Fenimore Cooper: His Works and their Relation to His Beliefs. Tokyo: Eichosa Co., 1992. A Japanese perspective
  • Rans, Geoffrey, Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Novels: A Secular Reading. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. An original and influential interpretation of Cooper’s most memorable novels
  • Adams, Charles Hansford, “The Guardian of the Law”: Authority and Identity in James Fenimore Cooper. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. Cooper’s use of legal drama in his novels
  • Motley, Warren, The American Abraham: James Fenimore Cooper and the Frontier Patriarch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. The frontier, seen through a variety of Cooper’s novels
  • Kelly, William P., Plotting America’s Past: Fenimore Cooper and the Leatherstocking Tales. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983. Cooper and American historical under standing
  • Franklin, Wayne, The New World of James Fenimore Cooper. University of Chicago Press, 1982. The concept of border or frontier in Cooper’s life and works
  • Peck, H. Daniel, A World by Itself: The Pastoral Moment in Cooper’s Fiction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. Cooper, landscape, and poetic vision
  • Nevius, Blake, Cooper’s Landscapes: An Essay on the Picturesque Vision. (Quantum Books) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. A short study of Cooper’s descriptive writing
  • Överland, Orm, The Making and Meaning of an American Classic: James Fenimore Cooper’s The Prairie. Oslo: Universitetforlaget, 1973. Cooper’s sources for the novel
  • Dekker, George, James Fenimore Cooper: The Novelist. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967. An important analysis of Cooper’s novels
  • House, Kay Seymour, Cooper’s Americans. Ohio State University Press, 1965. Women, Indians, Blacks, and other groups as viewed by Cooper
  • Stockton, Edwin L., The Influence of the Moravians upon the Leather-Stocking Tales. Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, Vol. XX, Part 1. Nazareth (PA): Whitefield House, 1964. Writings of John Heckewelder as sources of Cooper’s information about Indians
  • Walker, Warren S., James Fenimore Cooper: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962. A compact and very readable study of Cooper’s writings
  • * Ringe, Donald A., James Fenimore Cooper. New Haven: College and University Press, 1962, rev. ed. 1990. (Twayne’s United States Authors Series). Succinct and readable survey of Cooper’s writings in the context of his life
  • Philbrick, Thomas, James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961. The major analysis of Cooper’s role in inventing the novel of the sea
  • Schulenberger, Arvid, Cooper’s Theory of Fiction: His Prefaces and Their Relation to His Novels. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1955. Analysis of the Prefaces
  • Fridén, Georg, James Fenimore Cooper and Ossian. Upsala (Sweden): The American Institute of the University of Upsala, 1949. Evidence of Ossian’s influence on Cooper
  • Clavel, Marcel, Aix-en-Provence: Imprimerie Universitaire de Provence, 1938. A pioneerning study of Cooper criticism.

Emphasizing Cooper’s olitical Views

  • Axelrad, Allan M., History and Utopia: A Study of the World View of James Fenimore Cooper. Norwood (PA): Norwood Editions, 1978. Exploration of Cooper’s political philosophy. Online on this website.
  • McWilliams, John P., Jr., Political Justice in a Republic: James Fenimore Cooper’s America. University of California Press, 1972. Cooper’s political views and struggles
  • Waples, Dorothy, The Whig Myth of James Fenimore Cooper. Yale University Press, 1938. Cooper’s conflicts with, and his savaging by, the Whig-dominated American Press
  • Spiller, Robert E., Fenimore Cooper: Critic of His Times. New York: Minton, Balch, 1931 (reprinted by Russell, 1963). A classic study of Cooper’s political and social criticism

ther Books

Collections of iterary Criticism

  • *Person, Leland S., ed., A Historical Guide to James Fenimore Cooper. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Part of the Historical Guides to American Authors Series.
    • p. 3: Person, Leland S., “Introduction: Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Achievements.”
    • p. 27: Franklin, Wayne, “James Fenimore Cooper, 1789-1851: A Brief Biography.”
    • p. 61: McWilliams, John P., “’More Than a Woman’s Enterprise’: Cooper’s Revolutionary Heroines and the Source of Liberty.”
    • p. 91: Kennedy, J. Gerald, “Cooper’s Europe and His Quarrel with America.”
    • p. 123: Nelson, Dana D., “Cooper’s Leatherstocking Conversations: Identity, Friendship, and Democracy in the New Nation.”
    • p. 155: Mann, Barbara Alice, “Race Traitor: Cooper, His Critics, and Nineteenth-Century Literary Politics.”
    • p. 187: Illustrated Chronology.”
    • p. 215: Walker, Jeffrey, “Bibliographical Essay: Cooper and America.”
  • *Walker, Jeffrey, ed., Reading Cooper, Teaching Cooper. New York: AMS Press, 2007. Especially commissioned new critical essays
    • p. 1: Walker,Jeffrey, “Reading Cooper, Teaching Cooper; Or, An Introduction.”
    • p. 15: House, Kay Seymour, “Is Fenimore Cooper Obsolete?”
    • p. 32: McWilliams, John, “The Pioneers: Stumps in Clearing the Classroom Forest.”
    • p. 46: Axelrad, Allan M., “The Shock of Recognition: Twain and Lawrence Read Cooper.”
    • p. 76: Daly, Robert, “From World to Word and Back: Cooper’s Now and Next.”
    • p. 95: Kelly, William P., “Republican Fictions: Cooper and the Revolution.”
    • p. 124: Sappenfield, James A., “Cooper as Experimental Novelist.”
    • p. 139: Franklin, Wayne, “James Fenimore Cooper: The Biographical Matrix.”
    • p. 159: Schachterle, Lance, “Cooper’s Works in Print.”
    • p. 182: Sivils, Matthew Wynn, “’Yours, Truly, THE AUTHOR’: Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Prefaces.”
    • p. 201: Decker, William Merrill, “’Surely Cora Was Not Forgotten’: Remembering Africa in the Leather-Stocking Tales.”
    • p. 222: Mann, Barbara Alice, “Fancy Girls: The Creole and the Quadroom in Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Tales.”
    • p. 244: Callahan, David, “Cooper’s Androgynous Heroes.”
    • p. 263: Person, Leland S., “Cooper’s Otsego: Land to Rove for a Man’s Life.”
    • p. 281: Wegener, Signe O., “Reversing the Courtship Novel: James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer.”
    • p. 298: Cody, David, “James Fenimore Cooper and the Imperial Fantasy.”
    • p. 317: Lewis, Gladys S., “Fenimore Cooper’s Cinematic Legacy: Indiana Jones, the Cartwrights, and Spock’s Ears.”
    • p. 334: Richardson, Judith, “The ‘Littlepages’ of History: James Fenimore Cooper and Local History in the Lower Hudson Valley.”
    • p. 355: Valtiala, Nalle, “Cooper’s European Landscapes.”
    • p. 375: Arch, Stephen Carl, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offense: The ‘Homely’ Truth of Cooper’s Satire in Home as Found.”
  • Verhoeven, W.M., ed., James Fenimore Cooper: New Historical and Literary Contexts. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1993. Recent critical essays
    • p. 7: Verhoeven, W.M., “Introduction: Reconsidering Cooper.”
    • p. 19: Dekker, George, “James Fenimore Cooper and the American Romance Tradition.”
    • p. 31: Lee, A. Robert, “Making History, Making Fiction: Cooper’s The Spy.”
    • p. 47: Lawson-Peebles, Robert, “Property, Marriage, Women and Fenimore Cooper’s First Fictions.”
    • p. 71: Verhoeven, W.M., “Neutralizing the Land: The Myth of Authority, and the Authority of Myth in Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy.”
    • p. 89: McWilliams, John P., Jr., “Revolt in Massachusetts: The Midnight March of Lionel LIncoln.”
    • p. 109: Ringe, Donald A., “Mode and Meaning in The Last of the Mohicans.”
    • p. 125: Scheckel, Susan, “’In the Land of His Fathers’: Cooper, Land Rights, and Legitimation of American National Identity.”
    • p. 151: Cawelti, John G., “Cooper and the Frontier Myth and Anti-Myth.”
    • p. 161: Bakker, Jan, “From Leatherstocking to Rocketman: Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow Reconsidered.”
    • p. 177: Rust, Richard D., “On the Trail of a Craftsman: The Art of The Pathfinder.”
    • p. 185: D’Haen, Theo, “Dis-Placing Satanstoe.”
    • p. 203: Adams, Charles H., “Uniformity and Progress: The Natural History of The Crater.”
  • *Peck, Daniel, ed., New Essays on The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Five new essays on Cooper’s most popular book
    • p. 1: Peck, H. Daniel, “Introduction.”
    • p. 25: Franklin, Wayne, “The Wilderness of Words in The Last of the Mohicans.”
    • p. 47: Marin, Terence, “From Atrocity to Requiem: History in The Last of the Mohicans.”
    • p. 67: Baym, Nina, “How Men and Women Wrote Indian Stories.”
    • p. 87: Samuels, Shirley, “Generation through Violence: Cooper and the Making of Americans.”
    • p. 115: Lawson-Peebles, Robert, “The Lesson of the Massacre at Fort William Henry.”
  • Bakker, J. ed., J ames Fenimore Cooper Issue: Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters, Vol. 20, No. 3, 1990. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi. Papers from a 1989 Bicentennial Conference on Cooper at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands
    • p. 177: Cawalti, John G., “Cooper and the Frontier Myth and Anti-Myth.”
    • p. 187: Dekker, George, “James Fenimore Cooper and the American Romance Tradition.”
    • p. 199: D’Haen, Theo, “Dis-placing Cooper.”
    • p. 215: Kardux, Joke, “Cooper and the Ideas of Femininity in The Pioneers and The Last of the Mohicans.”
    • p. 224: Verhoeven, W.M., “Art as Neutral Ground: The Problem of Authority in The Spy.”
    • p. 239: Bakker, J., “From Leatherstocking to Rocketman: Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow“.
  • Redekop, Ernest H., ed., James Fenimore Cooper, 1789- 1851: Bicentennial Essays: The Canadian Review of American Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3, Winter 1989. London, ONT: University of Western Ontario. 10 papers, seven of them, marked, from the 1989 Cooper Conference in Oneonta, and online in the Articles section.
    • p. 3: Redekop, Ernest H., “Introduction.”
    • p. 9: House, Kay Seymour, “Cooper’s Status and Stature Now.”
    • p. 21: Ringe, Donald A., “Cooper Today: A Partisan View.”
    • p. 35: Philbrick, Thomas, “Cooper and the Literary Discovery of the Sea.”
    • p. 47: Darnell, Donald, “Cooper’s Problematic Pilot: ‘Unrighteous Ambition’ in a Patriotic Cause.”
    • p. 57: Rans, Geoffrey, “A Prolegomenon to Leatherstocking: The Importance of Crévecoeur — Breaking the Tablets, Destroying the Text.”
    • p. 77: Morton, Richard, “The Double Chronology of Leatherstocking.”
    • p. 97: Lapp, Peter C., “Cooper and his Critics on Character.”
    • p. 121: Steele, Ian K., “Cooper and Clio: The Sources for ‘A Narrative of 1757’.”
    • p. 137: Redekop, Ernest H., “Cooper’s Emblems of History/Fiction.”
    • p. 157: Elliott, James P., “The Editorial Policy of the Cooper Edition: A Retrospective.”
  • Clark, Robert, ed., James Fenimore Cooper: New Critical Essays. London & New York: Vision and Barnes & Noble, 1985. Recent, often politically-oriented, criticism of Cooper
    • p. 15: Ickstadt, Heinz, “Intstructing the American Democrat: Cooper and the Concept of Popular Fiction in Jacksonian America.”
    • p. 38: Wallace, James D., “Cultivating an Audience: From Precaution to The Spy.”
    • p. 55: Cheyfitz, Eric, “Literally White, Figuratively Red: The Frontier of Translation in The Pioneers.”
    • p. 96: Swann, Charles, “Guns Mean Democracy: The Pioneers and the Game Laws.”
    • p. 121: Godden Richard, “Pioneer Properties, or ‘What’s in a Hut?’.”
    • p. 143: McWilliams, John P., “Red Satan: Cooper and the American Indian Epic.”
    • p. 162: Brotherston, Gordon, “The Prairie and Cooper’s Invention of the West.”
    • p. 187: Clark, Robert, “Rewriting Revolution: Cooper’s War of Independence.”
  • Fields, Wayne, ed., James Fenimore Cooper: A Collection of Critical Essays. Prentice-Hall, 1979. (Spectrum Books). Modern critical essays, mostly on specific works
    • p. 1: Fields, Wayne, “Introduction.”
    • p. 13: Parrington, Vernon Louis, “James Fenimore Cooper: Critic.”
    • p. 16: Winters, Yvor, “Fenimore Cooper or The Ruins of Time.”
    • p. 37: Lawrence, D.H., “Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Novels.”
    • p. 53: Fiedler, Leslie A., “Naty Bumppo and Chingachgook.”
    • p. 58: Philbrick, Thomas, “Cooper’s The Pioneers: Origins and Structure.
    • p. 80: Martin, Terence, “From the Ruins of History: The Last of the Mohicans.”
    • p. 93: Fields, Wayne, “Beyond Definition: A Reading of The Prairie.”
    • p. 112: Kolodny, Annette, “Love and Sexuality in The Pathfinder.”
    • p. 117: Bewley, Marius, “Moral and Physical Action in The Deerslayer.”
    • p. 129: House, Kay Seymour, “The Unstable Element.”
    • p. 145: Ringe, Donald A., “Light and Shadow in The Bravo.”
    • p. 153: Peck, H. Daniel, “Satanstoe: The Case for Permanence.”
    • p. 167: McWilliams, John P., Jr., “’The American Democrat’.”
    • p. 181: Nevius, Blake, “The Later Landscapes.”
  • Dekker, George, and McWilliams, John P., eds. Fenimore Cooper: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. Critical articles, mostly written during Cooper’s lifetime
  • Walker, Warren S., ed., Leatherstocking and the Critics. Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 1965. Excerpts from Criticism, old and new, of The Leatherstocking Tales, including some imitations and parodies. Though some of the excerpts are short, this book conveniently covers a large expanse of Leatherstocking Tales criticism over the years.
    • ===Contemporary Criticism — Pro
    • p. 2: Balzac, Honoré de, “Notes on Literature.” [1840]
    • p. 3: Simms, William Gilmore, “The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper.” [1846]
    • p. 4: Parkman, Francis, “James Fenimore Cooper.” [1852]
    • p. 6: Bryant, William Cullen, “Discourse on the Life, Genius, and Writings of J. Fenimore Cooper.” [1852]
    • p. 7: Tuckerman, H.T., “James Fenimore Cooper.” [1859]
    • p. 9: Lounsbury, Thomas R., “The Last of the Mohicans.” [1882]
    • ===Contemporary Criticism — Con
    • p. 10: Anonymous, “The Last American Novel.” [1826]
    • p. 12: Anonymous, “Heckewelder on the American Indians.” [1828]
    • p. 14: Anonymous, “The Red Rover.” [1828]
    • ===Parody and Burlesque
    • p. 18: Thackeray, William Makepeace, “The Stars and Stripes.” [1847]
    • p. 23: Lowell, James Russell, “A Fable for Critics: Cooper.” [1848]
    • p. 25: Bret Harte, “Muck-a-Muck” [1867]
    • p. 29: Mark Twain, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences.” [1895]
    • ===Leatherstocking Today: Perspectives and Revaluations
    • p. 40: Lawrence, D.H., “Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Novels.” [1923]
    • p. 44: Hazard, Lucy Lockwood, “Hunter and Trapper.” [1927]
    • p. 53: Parrington, Vernon Louis, “James Fenimore Cooper: Critic.” [1927]
    • p. 54: Lewisohn, Ludwig, “Beginnings.” [1932]
    • p. 56: Snell, George, “The Shaper of American Romance.” [1945]
    • p. 59: Sutton, Walter, “American Literature Re-Examined: Cooper as Found — 1949.” [1949]
    • p. 60: Pearce, Roy Harvey Pearce, “Civilization and Savagism: The World of the Leatherstocking Tales.” [1950]
    • p. 65: Smith, Henry Nash, “Leatherstocking and the Problem of Social Order.” [1950]
    • p. 72: Jones, Howard Mumford, “James Fenimore Cooper and the Hudson River School.” [1952]
    • p. 78: Wallace, Paul A.W., “Cooper’s Indians.” [1954] [Online at this website]
    • p. 83: Davis, David Brion, “The Deerslayer, A Democratic Knight in the Wilderness.” [1958]
    • p. 95: Nevins, Allan, “The Leatherstocking Saga.” [1959]
    • p. 97: Fiedler, Leslie A., “James Fenimore Cooper and the Historical Romance.” [1960]
    • p. 104: Wasserstrom, William, “Cooper, Freud and the Origins of Culture.” [1960]
    • p. 113: Walker, Warren S., “The Frontiersman as Recluse and Redeemer.” [1960]
    • p. 123: McAleer, John J., “Biblical Analogy in the Leatherstocking Tales.” [1962]
    • p. 134: Kaul, A.N., “Washington and Natty Bumppo.” [1963]
  • Cunningham, Mary E., ed., James Fenimore Cooper: A Re-Appraisal. Cooperstown: New York State Historical Association, 1954. Papers from the 1951 literary conference about Cooper (now on this website under Articles: New York History)
  • Cooper Conference Papers: Papers from the biennial Conference on James Fenimore Cooper: His Country and His Art, held since 1978 at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oneonta, have been published by the College. Most papers given at these conferences have been published by SUNY Oneonta, and later placed on this website. (see Articles section)
  • Cooper Panel Papers: Papers from the Cooper Panel at the annual Conference of the American Literature Association. Most have been published by the James Fenimore Cooper Society, and later placed on this website.

iscellaneous

  • White, Craig, Student Companion to James Fenimore Cooper. Greenwood Press, 2006. A survey intended for students, concentrating on The Spy and The Leatherstocking Tales.
  • * Barker, Martin and Roger Sabin, The Lasting of the Mohicans: History of an American Myth. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995. How Cooper’s novel has been reworked into movies, television programs, and comic books.

astiches and Sequels

  • * Donati, Sara, Into the Wilderness. New York: Bantam Books, 1998. A tale of the Adirondacks in the 1790s, with politically- correct characters loosely based on The Pioneers.
  • Block, Paul, Song of the Mohicans. New York: Bantam Books, 1995. A sequel to The Last of the Mohicans.
  • Gray, George Arthur, Leatherstocking. “Suggested by J. Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales; illustrated with scenes from the photoplay. A Pathé Serial”. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1924. A “novelization” of the 1924 film.
  • Preston, George H., Hawkeye, A Sequel to The Deerslayer. Cincinatti: Razall & Co., 1897. Natty Bumppo during the Revolution; a serious, if not completely successful, attempt to copy Cooper’s style.
  • [Jackson, Frederick], The Effinghams, or Home as I Found It. New York: Samuel Coleman, 1841. Two volumes. Satire on Home as Found.

eference

  • Dyer, Alan Frank, James Fenimore Cooper: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. 1,943 books, articles, and other writings about Cooper
  • Summerlin, Mitchell Eugene, A Dictionary of the Novels of James Fenimore Cooper. Greenwood, FL: Penkevill Publishing Co., 1987. Identification of all the characters in Cooper’s novels
  • Walker, Warren S., Plots and Characters in the Fiction of James Fenimore Cooper. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1978. Detailed plot summaries, with index of characters. Online on this website.
  • Spiller, Robert E., and Philip C. Blackburn, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1934 (reprinted New York: Burt Franklin, 1968). Bibliography of early Cooper editions

uvenile

  • Steele, Alexander, The Last of the Breed. Big Red Chair Books, 1999. A dog named Wishbone is reborn as Hawk-eye in the adventures of The Last of the Mohicans. Part of the “Adventures of Wishbone” series.
  • Winders, Gertrude Hecker, James Fenimore Cooper: Leatherstocking Boy. Indianapolis: Bobb-Merrill, 1951. Fictionalized story of Cooper’s childhood
  • Proudfitt, Isabel, James Fenimore Cooper. New York: Julian Messner, 1946. Juvenile biography

LEGEND

* = believed to be still in print