Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times. By an American. Boston, 1824.
Jeremiah Clemens
A distant cousin of Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), Jeremiah Clemens is regarded as a pioneer of the "western" story.
Mustang Gray; A romance. By the Hon. Jeremiah Clemens. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1858.
James Fenimore Cooper
Whatever we think of Cooper as an artist (and Mark Twain had something to say on that subject), he is the writer who gave the United States a place among the literary nations. In 1820, Sydney Smith asked, "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" Ten years later, because of Cooper, the answer was "Practically everybody." For a while he achieved a popularity throughout the world surpassed only by Sir Walter Scott's; indeed, The Last of the Mohicans was instantly translated into French "par M. Defauconpret, traducteur de tous les romans historiques de Sir Walter Scott." Yet this was apparently not enough to sate the Parisian appetite for Cooper, since a completely new French translation was published less than ten years later, in 1835.It is astonishing how Europe took to Cooper. Already by 1827 there was an "Oeuvres Complètes" published in Paris, though Cooper had many more oeuvres to complete; his books were instantly translated into German as well. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that his reputation in Europe exceeded, and still exceeds, his reputation in his native country.
While the author of The Spy receives the applause of Europe;* while the critics of Germany and France debate the claims of Scott to be ranked before him or even with him, his own countrymen deride his pretensions, and Monikin critics affect contempt of him, or make the appearance of his works occasions of puerile personal abuse. I shall not discuss the causes of this feeling, further than by remarking that Mr. Cooper is a man of independence; that he is aware of the dignity of his position; that he thinks for himself in his capacity of citizen; and that he has written above the popular taste, in avoiding the sickly sentimentalism which commends to shop-boys and chamber-maids one half the transatlantic novels of this age. In each of the departments of romantic fiction in which he has written, he has had troops of imitators, and in not one of them an equal.... It must be confessed that Mr. Cooper's plots are sometimes of a common-place sort, that they are not always skilfully wrought, and that he has faults of style, and argument, and conclusion. But he is natural, he is original, he is American, and he has contributed more than any of his contemporaries to the formation of a really national literature.Here is a complete list of Cooper's novels, which will all eventually be linked to copies of the books.
*The Empire of the sea has been conceded to him by acclamation; in the lonely desert or untrodden prairie, among the savage Indians or scarcely less savage settlers, all equally acknowledge his dominion. "Within this circle none dares walk but he." —Edinburgh Review, cxxiii.
——Griswold, Prose Writers of America.
Precaution: A novel. By the author of the "Spy," "Red Rover," &c. &c. A new edition, revised by the author. London, 1838.
The Spy; A Tale of the Neutral Ground; referring to some particular occurrences during the American War: also portraying American scenery and manners. In three volumes. London, 1822.
Volume I.
Volume II.
Volume III.
The Pioneers, or the Sources of the Susquehanna: A Descriptive Tale. By the author of "Precaution." In two volumes. New-York, 1825.
Volume I.
Volume II.
The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Complete in one volume. New York, 1862.
Lionel Lincoln: or, The Leaguer of Boston. By the author of "The Spy." In two volumes. Fifth-edition. Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1832. —Widely considered a failure among Cooper's novels, but it was still in its fifth American edition seven years after its original publication. Any other author would be envious of such a failure. An English edition of the same year was greeted with approval by the Gentleman’s Magazine:
“Mr. Cooper’s talents have attained a very high rank among the authors of America. His stories are highly interesting and illustrative. He has, we believe, been blamed for abrupt transition, and improbability in the winding up of his story; but those who did so should first condemn our Richardsons, our Smolletts, and even our Fieldings. We might also, perhaps, speak of an incongruity or two; but who could do so, when he has advanced at all through so many beauties?”——The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1832.
Volume I.The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Complete in one volume. With the latest revision and corrections of the author. New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1856. —A very clean scan.
Volume II.
It is said that Cooper, the novelist, received $5,000 for the copy-right of the "Last of the Mohicans." Such is the unprecedented demand for the work, that every copy has been sold, and the publishers have come to the determination of publishing a stereotype edition.
——Niles' Register, April 22, 1826.
The Prairie; A Tale. By the author of "The Deerslayer," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Pathfinder," and "The Pioneers." Complete in one volume. Revised and corrected, with a new introduction, notes, &c., by the author. New York: George B. Putnam, 1851. —Legible type and a good clean scan. Misidentified by the librarian as The Last of the Mohicans.
It is evidently written to follow up the success of the Pioneers; a dangerous experiment, since an author seldom if ever succeeds a second time in introducing a favourite character. The cream is generally skimmed the first time, and either the scum or sediment is served up at the second table. Our old acquaintance, Natty Bumpo, verifies this observation. He appears again in the Prairie but with increased garrulity, and becomes heavy and tedious by repetition. Of this the writer seems to have been aware, for he kills him by a natural death at the conclusion of the story, apparently apprehensive that he might be tempted to murder him by inches in a future work.
——New-York Mirror, February 12, 1831.
The Red Rover; A tale. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Complete in one volume. With the latest revision and corrections of the author. New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1856. —A good clean scan.
The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish: a tale; by the author of The Pioneers, Prairie, &c. &c. In two volumes. —We have not been able to find a complete set of the first edition, but the 1832 edition, from the original Philadelphia publisher (Carey, Lea & Carey), seems to be substantially the same.
Volume I (1829).
Volume II (1832).
This work is a failure. It contains a few of those detached passages of spirited narration, to which our author's novels are, in a great measure, indebted for their popularity—and were it the performance of an inferior writer, or of a new candidate for fame, it would be entitled to favour as a very good imitation of Cooper—but those will be sadly disappointed, who regulate their expectations by the standard of the Pilot and the Red Rover....
Resuming the theme of border-life, he has not varied it with sufficient skill to avoid the dullness of repetition, and monotonous as the song of the bird from which it, too appropriately, receives its name, the Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish is but an echo of the Pioneers, the Last of the Mohicans, and the Prairie. If Mr. Cooper were merely manufacturing for the trade, he might be content to improve his monopoly by multiplying flat copies of a few partially successful sketches, and yet farther extending the catalogue of savage dangers and escapes, so prodigally commenced in the Last of the Mohicans; but if fame be his object, he must embody new creations. Let him desert a field which will produce no more under his mode of cultivation. He has worn out his tomahawk and scalping knife, and before his laurels have withered at the council-fires, let him wipe off his war-paint and abandon the frontier—Variare cupit rem prodigaliter unam.
The Borderers: a tale. By the author of "The Spy," "The Red Rover," "The Prairie," &c. &c. &c. In three volumes. London, 1829. —This is the London edition of The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, published simultaneously, or nearly so, with the American edition. We have a very fine copy of this edition before us now, beautifully bound, though the binder has made the rather odd decision to bind the three volumes as two, splitting the second volume. The scan does not do justice to the very tidy printing.
Volume I.
Volume II.
Volume III.
The Borderers; or, the Wept of Wish-ton-Wish. A tale. By the author of "The Pilot," "The Spy," "The Pioneers," &c. &c. &c. London, 1833. —This edition goes by both titles, English and American.
The Borderers; or, the Wept of Wish-ton-Wish: a tale. By Fenimore Cooper. Paris: Baudry's European Library, 1835. —The Paris edition uses the double title.
The Heathcotes: or, the Wept of Wish-ton-Wish. A romance of prairie life. By J. F. Cooper. London, 1855. —Here we have yet another title for the same story.
The Water-Witch; or, the Skimmer of the Seas. A tale. By the author of "The Deerslayer," &c. Complete in one volume. Revised and corrected, with a new introduction, notes, &c., by the author. New York: George P. Putnam & Co., 1852. —According to Cooper, the early editions (the first being printed in Germany) were riddled with typographical errors. "Care has been had to do ourselves justice in these particulars, and we think that the book is more improved in all these respects, in the present edition, than any other work that has passed through our hands."
It was a bold attempt to lay the scene of a work like this, on the coast of America. We have had our Buccaneers on the water, and our Witches on the land, but we believe this is the first occasion on which the rule has been reversed. After an experience that has now lasted more than twenty years, the result has shown that the public prefer the original order of things. In other words, the book has proved a comparative failure.
The facts of this country are all so recent, and so familiar, that every innovation on them, by means of the imagination, is coldly received, if it be not absolutely frowned upon. Perhaps it would have been safer to have written a work of this character without a reference to any particular locality. The few local allusions that are introduced, are not essential to the plot, and might have been dispensed with without lessening the interest of the tale.
Nevertheless, this is probably the most imaginative book ever written by the author. Its fault is in blending too much of the real with the purely ideal. Halfway measures will not do in matters of this sort; and it is always safer to preserve the identity of a book by a fixed and determinate character, than to make the effort to steer between the true and the false.
——Cooper's preface to this edition.
A very romantic but interesting narrative, a mystery well kept up, and two or three exciting scenes written in Mr. Cooper's best manner, will ensure "a wet sail and a flowing sheet" to the Water Witch, on the tide of public favour.... Among the characters introduced are a semi-Dutch and American merchant, a very clever and original sketch; his niece, a self-willed beauty; and two lovers, one a young gallant captain of the Coquette, the other merely Athelstan, from Ivanhoe, turned merchant. The other prominent figures on the canvass are smugglers; and here Mr. Cooper's desire for the sublime has trenched upon the ridiculous. The whole mummery of the Water Witch, a figure at the head of the ship hence so called, and who gives oracular answers in quotations from Shakspeare—carries absurdity to its extent.
——London Literary Gazette, October 23, 1830.
The Bravo: A Tale. By the author of “The Spy,” “The Red Rover,” “The Water-Witch,” &c. Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1831.
The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines. A Legend of the Rhine. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated from drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York: W. A. Townsend and Company, 1861.
The Headsman; or, the Abbaye des Vignerons. A tale. By the author of the “Bravo,” &c. &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833.
The Monikins; Edited by the Author of "The Spy." In two volumes [both included in this scan]. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1835. —The first American edition, at archive.org (it seems not to be available on Google Books).
The Monikins. By J. F. Cooper. Paris: Baudry's European Library, 1835. —Unfortunately most of the first half of this scan is useless; it seems as if the librarian took half the book to figure out how the equipment worked. We have not been able to determine whether this or the American edition is the original; probably the American, since Cooper was back in the United States by this time. At any rate, this was published the same year as the first American edition. We have an original copy of this edition before us now: it is a neat little octavo volume, printed in heavy modern type of the Didot fashion.
The Monikins. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated from drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York: W. A. Townsend and Company, 1860. —Superior illustrations and a clean scan. The picture of a Monikin above is extraordinarily fine.
This book was widely disparaged by American critics, but was nevertheless reprinted more than once. Today it has something of a reputation as an early example of science fiction, and Cooper's "monikins" have inspired characters in comic books and anime. Cooper might well have been amused by this second life for his failed satire.
What the work is about, passes our comprehension. It is said to be a Satire; but the eyes of an Argus, were they twice the fabled number, could not discern it. The volumes have neither consistency of plot, nor grace of execution. Every thing is cloudy, distorted, and unnatural. Man is degraded to a monkey, and made to play such antics as could scarcely be conceived of, except by one of the race. The author has become a convert, we should fancy, to the theory of Buffon; at least he has furnished, in the production of this work, the most plausible and practical illustration of the Frenchman's hypothesis, that we have ever met with.
We have no desire to disparage Mr. Cooper,—and with his political opinions we have nothing to do. Many of them are generally consonant with our own; and we honor, from the bottom of our hearts, his predominant love of country. He has already done much to exalt her intellectual name; but if he perseveres in his pseudo-satirical emanations, he will do more to depress, than he has ever done to elevate it. We conjure him to pause on the barren thoroughfare upon which he has entered, and retrace his steps to those flowery ways, where he whilome disported with such pleasure to himself, and edification to the public. There are several isolated passages and scenes in the Monikins, that indicate his usual strength; but they are thrown away most unprofitably, amid a mass of husks and garbage, of whose elements or use no conjecture can be formed.
——Knickerbocker, August 1835.
Homeward Bound: or The Chase: A Tale of the Sea
Home as Found: Sequel to Homeward Bound
The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea
Mercedes of Castile; or, The Voyage to Cathay. By J. Fenimore Cooper. In two volumes [both included in this scan]. New edition. New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1852. —Misidentified by the librarian as The Monikins.
The Deerslayer; or, The First War-Path. A tale. By J. Fenimore Cooper. In two volumes [both included in this scan]. New edition. New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1852.
The Two Admirals
The Wing-and-Wing, or Le Feu-Follet; A tale, by the author of "The Pilot," &c., &c. In two volumes. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1842. —Both volumes are included in this scan.
The Jack O'Lantern; (Le Feu-Follet;) or, the Privateer. By J. F. Cooper. Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, 1843. —An alternate title for the same tale.
Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief
Wyandotte: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale
Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale
Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore (In England, Lucy Hardinge: A Second Series of Afloat and Ashore)
Satanstoe; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts. A tale of the Colony. By J. Fenimore Cooper. In two volumes. New edition. New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1852. —Both volumes are included in this scan.
The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated from drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York: W. A. Townsend and Company, 1860.
The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin
The Crater; or, Vulcan's Peak. A Tale of the Pacific. By J. Fenimore Cooper. Illustrated from drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York: James G. Gregory, 1864. —The illustrations are superior and well scanned. The librarian has misidentified this copy as The Last of the Mohicans by "James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant." We do not pretend to explain how Bryant got in there.
Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs (also published as Captain Spike: or The Islets of the Gulf)
The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter
The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers
The Ways of the Hour. A tale. By J. Fenimore Cooper. New York, 1883. —A neatly printed and well-scanned one-volume edition.