If the indisputable merit of Irving and Hawthorne, as well as E. Poe, was the creation of the American short story, then James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) is rightfully considered the founder of the American novel. Along with W. Irving, Fenimore Cooper- a classic of romantic nativism: it was he who introduced into US literature such a purely national and multifaceted phenomenon as the frontier, although this does not exhaust the America Cooper opened to the reader.

Cooper was the first in the United States to begin writing novels in the modern understanding of the genre; he developed the ideological and aesthetic parameters of the American novel theoretically (in the prefaces to works) and practically (in his work). He laid the foundations for a whole series of genre varieties of the novel, previously completely unknown to domestic and, in some cases, world fiction.

Cooper is the creator of the American historical novel: with his “The Spy” (1821) the development of heroic national history began. He is the founder of the American maritime novel ("The Pilot", 1823) and its specifically national variety - the whaling novel ("Sea Lions", 1849), later brilliantly developed by G. Melville. Cooper developed the principles of American adventure and moral novels (Miles Walingford, 1844), a social novel (At Home, 1838), a satirical novel (The Monikins, 1835), a utopian novel (Colony on the Crater, 1848) and the so-called “Euro-American” novel (“Concepts of Americans”, 1828), the conflict of which is based on the relationship between the cultures of the Old and New Worlds; it then became central in the work of G. James.

Finally, Cooper is the pioneer of such an inexhaustible field of Russian fiction as the frontier novel (or “border novel”) - a genre variety that includes, first of all, his pentalogy about Leather Stocking. It should be noted, however, that Cooper’s pentalogy is a kind of synthetic narrative, for it also absorbs the features of historical, social, moral and adventure novels and an epic novel, which is fully consistent with the actual significance of the frontier in the national history and life of the 19th century.

James Cooper was born into a prominent family politician, congressman and large landowner Judge William Cooper, a glorious descendant of quiet English Quakers and stern Swedes. (Fenimore is the maiden name of the writer’s mother, which he added to his own in 1826, thus marking a new stage in his literary career). A year after his birth, the family moved from New Jersey to New York State to the uninhabited shores of Lake Otsego, where Judge Cooper founded the village of Cooperstown. Here, on the border between civilization and wild, undeveloped lands, the future novelist spent his childhood and early adolescence.

He was educated at home, studying with an English teacher hired for him, and at the age of thirteen he entered Yale, from where, despite brilliant academic success, he was expelled two years later for “provocative behavior and a tendency to make dangerous jokes.” Young Cooper could, for example, bring a donkey into the classroom and seat it in the professor's chair. Let us note that these pranks fully corresponded to the morals prevailing on the frontier and the very spirit of frontier folklore, but, of course, went against the ideas accepted in the academic environment. The measure of influence chosen by the strict father turned out to be pedagogically promising: he immediately sent his fifteen-year-old scoundrel son as a sailor on a merchant ship.

After two years of service, James Cooper entered the navy as a midshipman and spent another three years sailing the seas and oceans. He resigned in 1811, immediately after his marriage, at the request of his young wife, Susan Augusta, née de Lancie, from a good New York family. Soon after, his father died from a stroke suffered during a political debate, leaving his son a decent inheritance, and Cooper lived the quiet life of a country gentleman squire.

He became a writer, as family legend says, completely by accident - unexpectedly for his family and for himself. Cooper's daughter Susan recalled: “My mother was unwell; she was lying on the couch, and he was reading aloud to her a recent English novel. Apparently, the thing was worthless, because after the very first chapters he threw it away and exclaimed: “Yes, I would write to you myself.” a better book than this!" Mother laughed - this idea seemed so absurd to her. He, who hated even writing letters, would suddenly sit down to a book! Father insisted that he could, and indeed, he immediately sketched the first pages of a story that still there was no title; the action, by the way, took place in England."

Cooper's first work, an imitative novel of morals, Precaution, was published in 1820. Immediately after this, the writer, in his words, “tried to create a work that would be purely American, and the theme of which would be love for the motherland.” This is how it appeared historical novel"The Spy" (1821), which brought the author widespread fame in the USA and Europe, laying the foundation for the development of the American novel and, along with V. Irving's "Book of Sketches", distinctive national literature in general.

How was the American novel created, what was the “secret” of Cooper’s success, what were the features of the author’s storytelling technique? Cooper based his work on the main principle of the English social novel, which came into particular fashion in the first decades of the 19th century (Jane Austen, Mary Edgeworth): stormy action, free art of creating characters, subordination of the plot to the affirmation of a social idea. The originality of Cooper's works created on this basis lay, first of all, in the theme, which he found already in his first not imitative, but “purely American novel.”

This theme is America, which was completely unknown to Europeans at that time and always attractive to the patriotically minded domestic reader. Already in "Spy" one of the two main directions in which Cooper further developed this topic was outlined: national history(mainly the War of Independence) and the nature of the United States (primarily, the frontier and the sea, familiar to him from his youth; 11 of Cooper’s 33 novels are devoted to navigation). As for the drama of the plot and the vividness of the characters, national history and reality provided no less rich and more recent material for this than the life of the Old World.

Absolutely innovative and unlike the style of English novelists was the style of Cooper's nativist narrative: the plot, the figurative system, landscapes, the very method of presentation, interacting, created a unique quality of emotional Cooper's prose. For Cooper literary work was a way of expressing what he thought about America. At the beginning of it creative path, driven by patriotic pride for his young fatherland and optimistic about the future, he sought to correct certain shortcomings of national life. The “touchstone” of democratic beliefs for Cooper, as well as for Irving, was a long stay in Europe: a New York writer at the zenith of world fame, he was appointed American consul in Lyon. Fenimore Cooper, who took advantage of this appointment to improve his health and introduce his daughters to Italian and French culture, stayed abroad longer than expected.

After a seven-year absence, he, who had left John Quincy Adams's USA, returned in 1833, like Irving, to Andrew Jackson's America. Shocked by the dramatic changes in the life of his country, he, unlike Irving, became an implacable critic of Jacksonian vulgarization of broad frontier democracy. The works written by Fenimore Cooper in the 1830s earned him fame as the first “anti-American,” which accompanied him until the end of his life and caused many years of persecution by the American press. “I am at odds with my country,” Cooper said.

The writer died in Cooperstown, in full bloom of his creative powers, although his unpopularity as an “anti-American” overshadowed the brilliant glory of the singer of his native land.

Read also other articles in the section "Literature XIX century. Romanticism. Realism":

The artistic discovery of America and other discoveries

Romantic nativism and romantic humanism

• Specifics of American romanticism. Romantic nativism
• Romantic humanism. Transcendentalism. Travel prose

National history and history of the soul of the people

History and modernity of America in dialogues of cultures

• James Fenimore Cooper. Biography and creativity

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was born into a wealthy family, studied at school and college, became a sailor, then a traveler, and after crossing the thirty-year mark, he wrote the novel “Precaution”, a year later - the novel “Spy” and gained fame.

There is no need to introduce Fenimore Cooper. Cooper is our childhood.

Back in the middle of the last century, people in Europe said that America was known only from Niagara Falls and from the stories of Washington Irving. Irving is only six years older than Cooper, and began to study literature only a year before him. So if Irving is the father American literature, then Cooper is at least her uncle. He is, of course, a romantic, but a very unusual romantic, who happily found his theme.

Romantics often went to the distant past for plots, away from reality. Cooper, on the contrary, wrote about the present, about the exploration of America, about old hunters and brave Indians. And this present was written in such an amazing language that it still stuns boys - incorrigible romantics.

Nikolay Vnukov

Farmer from Otsego Lake

One evening in August 1819, the wealthy American landowner James Fenimore Cooper was sitting by the fireplace in his cozy living room and reading to his wife what he had just received from England. new novel. It was a story, common in the literature of that time, of two lovers, on whose path many different obstacles arise, but ends happy marriage and always a stern moral lesson at the end.

Logs crackled in the fireplace, Fenimore's wife lowered her sewing on her knees and listened to the end with a smile. last pages books. Fenimore finished reading them quickly. Finally he slammed the volume shut and threw it on the floor.

Unbearable, right? It was like I'd eaten too much cornbread and molasses.

It’s really boring,” said the wife. “And you don’t believe anything.” This never happens in life.

You know, dear, I probably would have written much better.

You? - exclaimed the young woman. - But you are not a writer. To write books, you need talent.

Talent...” Fenimore repeated thoughtfully. “Who knows, maybe I have talent too.” After all, I have never tried it.

Try it!” his wife encouraged him.

Do you think it won't work?

“I’m sure,” she said. “You are a landowner, a planter, but not a writer.”

Yes, Fenimore Cooper was thirty years old, and he was a planter and landowner. He inherited the house and land - 4,000 hectares - from his father, Judge William Cooper. Fenimore raised sheep on the land, grew wheat and lived calmly and carefree, like any wealthy person. Behind him were three years of law school at the university, sailing as a sailor on a merchant ship, and serving in the navy as a midshipman on the brig Vesuvius.

He loved the sea. Water had been nearby since childhood - my father’s huge estate stood on the shores of the beautiful Lake Otsego. At the age of five he learned to swim, and at the age of eight he learned to shoot a gun. The forest was also nearby - it stood like an impenetrable wall along the shores of the lake. Just get far enough into the thicket, and you could meet Indians from the Oneida or Onondaga tribes - former owners of this land.

In 1809, when Fenimore was twenty years old, his father died. He was involved in politics, and politics brought him to an end. At one of the election rallies, my father argued with his political opponent. The argument turned into a fight. Judge William Cooper received such a blow to the bridge of his nose from his opponent that he died two days later. In America at that time, fights between political opponents were the most common thing.

In 1811, Fenimore received his share of his father's inheritance and married. The sea was finished. The midshipman of the navy turned into a large landowner.

His wife's words that he couldn't write a better book English writer, hit hoo.

You know, I’ll still try,” Fenimore said.

He not only wrote the novel “Precaution”, but even published it. Subsequently, he was ashamed of this book - it was completely imitative. However, writing captured him so much that he immediately began writing his second book.

In “Precaution,” I wrote about England, knowing it only from books and stories,” he told his wife. - Now I will try to create a purely American novel. I want to write about our recent war of independence and love for our country.

A year later, the novel “Spy” was born.

Fenimore Cooper became famous.

Indeed, The Spy was the first work in the States to tell the story of the struggle of the young American republic with the English metropolis. In this novel, Fenimore Cooper made the hero not an aristocrat, but a traveling merchant-peddler Harvey Birch.

Two years later, Cooper wrote a novel about settlers exploring the wild lands of the American continent west of the Atlantic coast - “Pioneers.”

The new book brought him worldwide fame. The landowner has become professional writer. Interestingly, Cooper's first maritime novel, The Pilot, was also born out of controversy. Cooper and his wife were invited to the wealthy New York book lover Charles Wilkes. New literature was discussed during lunch. The conversation was about Walter Scott and his book “The Pirate”.

Everyone was perplexed: Walter Scott was never a sailor. He was a judge and spent his free time from meetings either in his office over manuscripts or in social drawing rooms. How does he know the sea so well?

Yes, he doesn’t know the sea at all! - exclaimed Fenimore Cooper, leafing through the book. - The text contains at most a dozen nautical terms that can amaze a land person. And the sea scenes take up very little space. Sir Walter's talent as a storyteller helps him out. He so deftly inserts nautical words into the text that it seems as if he were writing a sea wolf.

That's it! - said Charles Wilkes. - If there were more scenes at sea, and the hero constantly rolled out booms, topmasts, sheets and jibs in his speech, the land reader would fall asleep over such pages. Sir Walter has delicate taste.

But I don’t believe in it! - said Fenimore. - It seems to me that a novel, the entire action of which will take place at sea and the heroes of which will speak only in the “maritime” language, can be no less exciting than any other.

For sailors, maybe, but not for us,” Wilkes said.

On the way home, Fenimore said to his wife:

I couldn't prove anything. I'll have to write a sea novel. This is the only way I will show what a sailor can achieve in this genre.

The argument over dinner ended with the creation of the first maritime novel in world literature.

Soon Cooper was appointed American consul to France, he went to Europe and lived there for seven years. He visited England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and met famous European writers, including Walter Scott. He wrote travel essays and novels from European life, which are now almost forgotten. There, in Europe, he finished the second book about his favorite hero - the free hunter of forests and prairies - St. John's Wort, or Leather Stocking.

Returning to America, he saw that the once virgin forests in the state of New York had thinned out under the axes of the settlers, and some had been completely burned out. That the remnants of the Indian tribes were either completely exterminated or are eking out a miserable existence. That an unbridled pursuit of money began in American society, which gave rise to cynicism, venality and hypocrisy.

And then Cooper decided to fight with his pen against what he considered disastrous for his country.

In addition to the novels about Leatherstocking “The Pathfinder” and “St. John’s Wort,” critical articles appeared from his pen one after another. They were so merciless that they were soon stopped being printed. And then his books began to be confiscated from libraries.

“So I parted ways with my country...” Cooper sadly admitted in one of his letters.

He died in 1851 in his native Cooperstown (an entire town grew up on the site of his father’s estate), leaving a huge number of novels for readers around the world. Many of them did not stand the test of time and were forgotten, but “The Spy”, “The Pilot” and five books about the Indians and the free forest hunter Nathaniel Bumpo - Leather Stocking - became classical works world literature.

Balzac "roared with delight" when reading Cooper's novels. Lermontov found in them more depth and artistic value than in the novels of Walter Scott. Belinsky compared Cooper to Shakespeare. Gorky said that “the illiterate Bumpo is almost an allegorical figure, joining the ranks of those true friends of humanity whose sufferings and exploits so richly adorn our lives.”

Cooper's books are now known and loved by children and adults throughout our vast country. Because Honesty, Courage and Dedication, sung by the writer, always remain Honesty, Courage and Dedication in any corner globe where people live.

Imagine how it happens! Sometimes they become writers on a dare. This may be an isolated incident in world literature, but this is how it happened. Fenimore once read a book with his wife and said in his hearts that he could have written something better than what he and his wife were reading. To which the wife ironically remarked: “write...”, which prompted or inspired her husband to write. As a result, Fenimore simply had no choice but to start writing a novel. This was his first attempt at writing, and the novel was called “Precaution.” This is the answer for the quiz.

For those who have not yet watched this TV quiz, I will say that the question was for 3 million, but the players failed to guess Cooper’s work, they chose “the last of the magicians” and, alas, lost the final question. I note that the idea of ​​such an answer belonged to Burkovsky, inspired by the success in the question of Nobel laureate, Andrey overestimated his luck and knocked the right path Victor, who was more sympathetic to the answer “precaution”.

• The question was taken with a hint.

James Fenimore-Cooper

Pathfinder
St. John's wort
The Last of the Mohicans
Pioneers
Spy
Pilot
Sea sorceress
Prairie
Lionel Lincoln or the Siege of Boston
Littlepage family
Miles Wallingford
Clearings in oak groves
Executioner
Vish-Ton-Vish Valley
At sea and on land
Crater
Wyandotte, or House on the Hill
Two admirals
Bravo
Mercedes from Castilla
Red Corsair
sea ​​lions
Monikins

Books and articles by year
1820 - composes a traditional novel of morals, Precaution, for his daughters.
1821 is a historical novel, The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground, based on local legends. 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 leader of writers who advocated for the national identity of American literature.
1823 - the first novel is published, later the fourth part of the pentalogy about Leatherstocking - “The Pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna”.
short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
the novel "The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea", the first of Cooper's many works about adventures at sea.
1825 — novel “Lionel Lincoln, or The Siege of Boston” (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).
1826 - the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo, Cooper's most popular novel, the name of which has become a household name - “The Last of the Mohicans”.
1827 - the fifth part of the pentalogy novel “The Steppes”, otherwise “The Prairie”.
1828 — naval novel “The Red Corsair” (The Red Rover).
Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829 - the novel “The Valley of Wish-ton-Wish”, dedicated to the Indian theme - the battles of the American colonists of the 17th century. with the Indians.
1830 — a 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) - a novel from the distant past of Venice.
1832 - the second part of the trilogy “The Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines” (The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine) - a historical novel from the time of the early Reformation in Germany.
short stories (No Steamboats)
1833 - the third part of the trilogy “The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons” - a legend of the 18th century. about the hereditary executioners of the Swiss canton of Bern.
1834 — (A Letter to His Countrymen)
1835 - criticism American reality in the political allegory “The Monikins”, written in the tradition of educational allegorism and satire of J. Swift.
1836 — memoirs (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 “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
Homeward 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 an excellent mastery of the material and love for navigation.
Old Ironsides
1840 — “The Pathfinder, or The Lake-Sea” (The Pathfinder, or The inland sea) - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo
a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus, Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay.
1841 - “The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath” - the first part of the pentalogy.
1842 - the novel “The Two Admirals”, telling an episode from the history of the British fleet leading the war with France in 1745
a novel about French privateering, “Will-and-Wisp” (Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet).
1843 - the novel “Wyandotte: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale” about the American Revolution in the remote corners 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 — novel “On Land and Sea” (Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale)
and its sequel “Miles Wallingford” (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the main character has autobiographical features.
Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c.
1845 - two parts of the “trilogy in defense of land rent”: “Satanstoe” (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony) and “The Land Surveyor” (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).
1846 - the third part of the trilogy - the novel “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 - the pessimism of the late Cooper 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.
1848 — the novel “The Oak Grove” or “Gleades in the Oak Groves, or the Bee-Hunter” (The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter) - from the history of the Anglo-American War of 1812.
Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
1849 Cooper's latest sea novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, is about a shipwreck that befalls seal hunters in the ice of Antarctica.
1850 — last book Cooper's "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) - an unfinished work on the history of New York City.

James Fenimore Cooper, one of the most famous American writers, is considered the first who began to write about the then American reality. To some extent, he can also be called my fellow countryman, because he grew up in the state of New York, in a town named after him, or more precisely, the name of his father. This town is located about three hours away from where I live. In general, not so far. Next week I have to go to New Jersey on business, and I'll try to stop by Cooperstown on the way and see the place with my own eyes.

Shortly after Fenimore's birth, he was born on September 15, 1789, his father, a wealthy landowner, moved to New York State and founded the village of Cooperstown there, which turned into a town. Having received his initial education at a local school, Cooper went to Yale University, but without completing the course, he entered the naval service; was appointed to participate in the construction of a warship on Lake Ontario.

Fenimore Cooper House in Cooperstown

We owe this circumstance to the magnificent descriptions of Ontario found in his famous novel “The Pathfinder.” In 1811, Cooper married a Frenchwoman, Delana, who came from a family that sympathized with England during the Revolutionary War; its influence explains those relatively mild reviews of the English 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: in order not to seem like a braggart, he wrote his first novel, “Precaution” (1820), in a few weeks.
Assuming that, in view of the already begun competition between English and American authors, English criticism would react unfavorably to his work, Cooper did not sign his name and transferred the action of his novel to England. The latter circumstance could only harm the book, which revealed the author’s poor acquaintance with English life and which caused very unfavorable reviews from English critics. Cooper’s second novel, already from American life, was the famous “The Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground” (1821), which had enormous success not only in America, but also in Europe.
Then Cooper wrote a whole series of novels from American life ("Pioneers", 1823; "The Last of the Mohicans", 1826; "The Barrens", otherwise "Prairie", 1827; "The Discoverer of Trace", otherwise "Pathfinder", 1840; "The Hunter for deer", otherwise "St. John's wort, or the First Warpath", 1841), in which he depicted the struggle of European aliens with American Indians. The hero of these novels is the hunter Natti (Nathanael) Bumpo, who performs under different names(Deerslayer, Pathfinder, Hawkeye, Leather Stocking, Long Carbine), energetic and handsome, soon became a favorite of the European public.

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 went to Europe, where he spent seven years. The fruit of this journey was several novels (Bravo, The Headsman, Mercedes of Castile), set in Europe.
The mastery of the story and its ever-increasing interest, the vividness of the descriptions of nature, which emanate the primeval freshness of the virgin forests of America, the relief in the depiction of characters who stand before the reader as if alive - these are Cooper’s advantages as a novelist. He also wrote maritime novels “The Pilot” (1823) and “The Red Corsair” (1828).

Upon his return from Europe, Cooper wrote the political allegory "Monikins" (1835), five volumes travel notes(1836-1838), several novels from American life (Satanstowe; 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 it caused poisoned last years Cooper's life Fenimore Cooper died on September 14, 1851 in Cooperstown from cirrhosis of the liver.

Cooper Monument in Cooperstown

In the early 1840s, Cooper's novels were very popular in Russia. The first translations into Russian were made by children's writer A. O. Ishimova. In particular, the one published in “ Domestic notes""Discoverer of Trace" ("Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario", "The Pathfinder", Russian translation 1841), about which V. G. Belinsky said that this is a Shakespearean drama in the form of a novel.

Bibliography

1820 composes a traditional novel of morals, Precaution, for his daughters.
1821 historical novel The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground, based on local legends. The novel poeticizes the era of the American Revolution and its ordinary heroes. "Spy" receives international recognition. Cooper moved with his family to New York, where he soon became a prominent literary figure and leader of writers who advocated for the national identity of American literature.
1823:
The first novel is published, later the fourth part of the pentalogy about Leatherstocking - “The Pioneers, or The sources of the Susquehanna”.
short stories (Tales for Fifteen: or Imagination and Heart)
the novel "The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea", the first of Cooper's many works about adventures at sea.
1825:
novel "Lionel Lincoln, or The Siege of Boston" (Lionel Lincoln, or The leaguer of Boston).
1826 - the second part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo, Cooper's most popular novel, the name of which became a household name - The Last of the Mohicans.
1827 - the fifth part of the pentalogy novel “The Steppes”, otherwise “The Prairie”.
1828:
maritime novel “The Red Corsair” (The Red Rover).
Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor
1829 - novel “The Valley 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) - a novel from the distant past of Venice.
1832:
the second part of the trilogy “The Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines” (The Heidenmauer: or, The Benedictines, A Legend of the Rhine) is a historical novel from the time of the early Reformation in Germany.
short stories (No Steamboats)
1833 - the third part of the trilogy “The headsman, or The Abbaye des vignerons” - a legend of the 18th century. 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 educational allegorism and satire of J. Swift.
1836:
memoirs (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 “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
Homeward 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 an excellent mastery of the material and love for navigation.
Old Ironsides
1840:
“The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea” - the third part of the pentalogy about Natty Bumppo
a novel about the discovery of America by Columbus, Mercedes of Castile: or, The Voyage to Cathay.
1841 - “The Deerslayer: or The First Warpath” - the first part of the pentalogy.
1842:
the novel “The Two Admirals”, telling an episode from the history of the British fleet waging war with France in 1745
a novel about French privateering, “Will-and-Wisp” (Wing-and-Wing, or Le feu-follet).
1843 - novel “Wyandotté: or The Hutted Knoll. A Tale” about the American Revolution in the remote corners 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:
novel “Afloat and Ashore: or The Adventures of Miles Wallingford. A Sea Tale”
and its sequel “Miles Wallingford” (Miles Wallingford: Sequel to Afloat and Ashore), where the image of the main character has autobiographical features.
Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, &c.
1845 - two parts of the “trilogy in defense of land rent”: “Satanstoe” (Satanstoe: or The Littlepage Manuscripts, a Tale of the Colony) and “The Land Surveyor” (The Chainbearer; or, The Littlepage Manuscripts).
1846 - the third part of the trilogy - the novel “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 - The pessimism of the late Cooper 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.
1848:
the novel “The Oak Grove” or “Clearings in the Oak Groves, or the Bee-Hunter” (The Oak Openings: or the Bee-Hunter) - from the history of the Anglo-American War of 1812.
Jack Tier: or the Florida Reefs
1849 - Cooper's last sea novel, The Sea Lions: The Lost Sealers, about a shipwreck that befell seal hunters 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) - an unfinished work on the history of New York City.

Cooperstown today