James Fenimore Cooper
Public-domain ebook
James Fenimore Cooper
Language: en1,363 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Biographies·American Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #13155.
About this book
The work is a meticulously compiled biography of James Fenimore Cooper that presents his life as a “simply told personal” narrative, drawing on every available source from the earliest printed mentions to family recollections. Mary E. Phillips frames the book around authentic pictures of people, places and objects linked to Cooper, aiming to keep the man himself at the foreground rather than the authorial myth. The introduction explains how the author’s grandfather, George P. Keese, and other relatives supplied rare material, while the extensive list of acknowledgments underscores the collaborative effort that gathered portraits, maps, and photographs of Cooper’s homes, his ancestors, and the Otsego landscape that inspired his Leatherstocking tales. The opening therefore promises a richly illustrated, source‑based portrait of the writer, anchored in the specific details of his New York upbringing and the foreclosure that led his family to settle in Cooperstown.
The book’s voice is that of a late‑19th‑century scholar, combining formal, reverent prose with a catalogue‑like enumeration of visual documents. Its style reflects the period’s penchant for exhaustive footnotes and a genteel, almost devotional tone toward its subject. Readers who enjoy literary history, American Romanticism, or the cultural context of early‑19th‑century New England will find the volume rewarding, especially those who appreciate a biography that interweaves narrative with abundant period illustrations and primary‑source material.
Characters in James Fenimore Cooper
- James Fenimore CooperWhite male, early 30s, wavy dark hair, sideburns, Regency coat, cravat, thoughtful expression
- George P. KeeseOlder white gentleman, silver beard, spectacles, Victorian frock coat, waistcoat, dignified posture
The opening · free to read
The intention of this simply told personal life of James Fenimore Cooper, the creator of American romance, is to have all material authentic. The pictures of men, women, places and things are, as nearly as possible, of Cooper's association with them to reproduce a background of his time and to make the _man_--not the author--its central foreground figure. From every available source since the earliest mention of the author's name, both in print and out, material for these pages has been collected. In this wide gleaning in the field of letters--a rich harvest from able and brilliant pens--the gleaner hereby expresses grateful appreciation of these transplanted values. Much, precious in worth and attractive in interest, comes into these pages from the generous and good among the relatives, friends, and admirers of Fenimore Cooper. And more than all others, the author's grand-nephew, the late Mr. George Pomeroy Keese, of Cooperstown, New York, has paid rich and rare tribute to the memory of his uncle, with whom when a boy he came in living touch. Appeals to Cooper's grandson, James Fenimore Cooper, Esq., of Albany, New York, and also to his publishers have been met in a spirit so gracious and their giving has been so generous as to command the grateful service of the writer.
For rare values, in service and material, special credits are due to Mr. George Pomeroy Keese, Cooperstown, N.Y.; James Fenimore Cooper, Esq., Albany, N.Y.; Mr. Francis Whiting Halsey, New York City; Mr. Edwin Tenney Stiger, Watertown, Mass.; General James Grant Wilson, New York City; Mr. Horace G. Wadlin, Librarian, Messrs. Otto Fleischner, Assistant Librarian, O.A. Bierstadt, F.C. Blaisdell, and others, of the Boston Public Library; Miss Alice Bailey Keese, Cooperstown, N.Y.; Mrs. T. Henry Dewey, Paris, France; Mrs. Edward Emerson Waters, New York City; and Miss Mary C. Sheridan, Boston, Mass.
Mary E. Phillips.
A life of Cooper, written with some particular reference to the picturesque village among the Otsego hills, where he so long lived and in whose soil he, for some sixty years or more, has slept, has long been needed. That such a book should have become a labor of love in the hands of Miss Phillips is not more interesting than it is fortunate that the task should have been accomplished so conspicuously well. Miss Phillips has borne testimony to the resourcefulness and rare devotion with which the late Mr. Keese assisted her in researches extending over many years. None knew so well as he the personal side of Cooper's whole life story; none so assiduously and so lovingly, during a long life spent in Cooperstown, gathered and tried to preserve in their integrity every significant and interesting detail of it.
The turning point in Cooper's life was reached when he went to Cooperstown, although he was little more than a child in arms. Most curious is it that his going should have resulted from the foreclosure of a mortgage. This mortgage had been given in the late Colonial period by George Croghan, and covered a vast tract of native forest lands in Otsego. In these lands, through the foreclosure, Cooper's father, soon after the Revolution, acquired a large interest, which led him to abandon his home of ease and refinement in Burlington, New Jersey, and found a new, and, as it proved to be, a permanent one in the unpeopled wilderness at the foot of Otsego Lake. Except for this accident of fortune, Leatherstocking and his companions of the forest never could have been created by the pen of Cooper.
THE FENIMORE BOX. (Of light and dark woods, size 12-1/2 X 6-3/4 inches.) From photograph by permission of owner, James Fenimore Cooper, Esq., Albany, N.Y.
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