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James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Yearsby Prof. Wayne FranklinFirst Edition
Book DescriptionYale University Press, 2007-06-19. First Edition. Hardcover. New. Ships to you in a sturdy box! -- James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) invented the key forms of American fiction—the Western, the sea tale, the Revolutionary War romance. Furthermore, Cooper turned novel writing from a polite diversion into a paying career. He influenced Herman Melville, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Francis Parkman, and even Mark Twain—who felt the need to flagellate Cooper for his “literary offenses.” His novels mark the starting point for any history of our environmental conscience. Far from complicit in the cleansings of Native Americans that characterized the era, Cooper’s fictions traced native losses to their economic sources.Perhaps no other American writer stands in greater need of a major reevaluation than Cooper. This is the first treatment of Cooper’s life to be based on full access to his family papers. Cooper’s life, as Franklin relates it, is the story of how, in literature and countless other endeavors, Americans in his period sought to solidify their political and cultural economic independence from Britain and, as the Revolutionary generation died, stipulate what the maturing republic was to become. The first of two volumes, James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years covers Cooper’s life from his boyhood up to 1826, when, at the age of thirty-six, he left with his wife and five children for Europe. Bookseller Terms of SaleMerchandise may be returned within 7 days of receiving the item. E-mail contact must be made before any items is return. Customer ReviewsOn Aug 15 2009, feeney said:  "Pioneering American novelist James Fenimore Cooper lived from 1789 until 1851. In THE EARLY YEARS, Professor Wayne Franklin ends his biography when 36 year old Cooper boards a ship in 1826 to travel for the better part of a decade in Europe with his wife and five children. By 1826 James Cooper's best known novel THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS was in print. These and earlier works started his reputation at home and abroad. *** Author Franklin roots his narrative in documents, some not available until the 1990s. But he is not afraid to speculate. If, for instance, he knows that Cooper was in one city at the beginning of his honeymoon and knows when he arrives at Cooperstown but not by what overland route, he will guess and then use his guess as a starting point for describing landscapes more familiar to Cooper's bride Susan than to James himself. *** JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: THE EARLY YEARS is filled with often fascinating excursuses into the lives and times of seemingly every relative, schoolmate, naval officer colleague and acquaintance James Cooper (he added Fenimore later) ever had. Thus we see the impact that President Thomas Jefferson's embargo on trade with Britain had on the economy of New York State. We investigate the tenacious hold of dueling on officers of the young American navy. We learn how chance meetings with Indians or time spent in still Dutch-feeling Albany furnish materials for novels and Cooper's pioneering history of the U. S. Navy. *** The book has helpful contemporary black and white illustrations, lavish notes and an excellent bibliography. Wanting are maps of colonial and early American New York. All in all a book indispensable to lovers of James Fenimore Cooper and early American history. -OOO-" Other Recommended Books
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