Early American Writer

James Fenimore Cooper is one of America's first novelists. In his first series, The Littlepage Manuscripts, Corny Littlepage was the hero of the Satanstoe. Other books in the series, (written in two years!) are The Chainbearer and The Redskins. All the novels deal with the anti-rent controversy of the mid-1840s.

Cooper's strong political feelings in favor of the landed gentry progressively colored each book until the last is considered more of a diatribe than a novel. Since he favored the "landed gentry" they obviously favored him, by publishing his books that espoused their needs with no care to the essence of a good novel. (Even then, it paid to have connections!).

Cooper's best known and hallmark Leatherstocking series wasn't named for a character. The protagonist was Natty Bumppo--a"natural man." The five books tell Bumppo's life from his youth (Deerslayer) to his death (The Prairie). The Leatherstocking series also includes The Pioneers(1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), and The Pathfinder (1840).

Cooper was a family man; he married Susan DeLancey in 1811.