James Fenimore Cooper is chiefly known to posterity as the author of The Last of the Mohicans, focussing on the friendship between a Native American chief and a white hunter.
Cooper himself acknowledged that it was his "Leatherstocking Tales" which were the most likely to endure of his work; yet this estimate understates Cooper's significance as the most prolific and internationally-read American author of the first half of the nineteenth century.
Fenimore Cooper developed a distinctive style well adapted to handling frontier, military and nautical romances, which won him great popularity and gave him entry to the leading figures in post-Napoleonic Europe.
In consequence he also became one of the most sophisticated political and environmentalist thinkers of his time.
His explicitly political writings and politically-involved novels won him both considerable influence and formidable social rejection.
His environmental worries, perceptible in many of his works, anticipate today's concerns.
Cooper was also a significant historian, and broke new literary ground in writing a biography of an ordinary sailor when such works were always concerned with the "great and the good".
The breadth and significance of his output remains widely under-recognised, and too many of his works hard to find.This edition of the Complete Works of Fenimore Cooper not only includes the well-known novels, but obscure early fictional works and the significant non-fictional works, including the naval histories and biographies, the pioneering biography Ned Myers, travel writing, and the political pamphlets which were of great importance in Cooper's time.
The contents of the volumes are as follows:Volume 1 (333 pp.): Precaution; Introduction to the Works by Dr. Bob Lawson-PeeblesVolume 2 (335 pp.): The SpyVolume 3 (94 pp.): Tales for FifteenVolume 4 (417 pp.): The Deerslayer (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 1)Volume 5 (316 pp.): The Last of the Mohicans (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 2)Volume 6 (378 pp.): The Pathfinder (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 3)Volume 7 (367 pp.): The Pioneers (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 4)Volume 8 (348 pp.): The Prairie (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 5)Volume 9 (342 pp.): The PilotVolume 10 (324 pp.): Lionel LincolnVolume 11 (351 pp.): The Red RoverVolume 12 (312 pp.): The Wept of Wish-ton-WishVolume 13 (336 pp.): The Water-WitchVolume 14 (325 pp.): The BravoVolume 15 (310 pp.): The HeidenmauerVolume 16 (334 pp.): The HeadsmanVolume 17 (309 pp.): The MonikinsVolume 18 (370 pp.): Homeward BoundVolume 19 (343 pp.): Home as FoundVolume 20 (374 pp.): Mercedes of CastileVolume 21 (375 pp.): The Two AdmiralsVolume 22 (349 pp.): The Wing-and-WingVolume 23 (346 pp.): WyandotteVolume 24 (117 pp.): Autobiography Of a Pocket-HandkerchiefVolume 25 (387 pp.): Afloat and AshoreVolume 26 (329 pp.): Miles WallingfordVolume 27 (356 pp.): Satanstoe (Littlepage Manuscripts vol. 1)Volume 28 (340 pp.): The Chainbearer (Littlepage Manuscripts vol. 2)Volume 29 (374 pp.): The Redskins (Littlepage Manuscripts vol. 3)Volume 30 (340 pp.): The CraterVolume 31 (350 pp.): Jack TierVolume 32 (343 pp.): The Oak OpeningsVolume 33 (331 pp.): The Sea LionsVolume 34 (347 pp.): The Ways of the HourVolume 35 (94 pp.): Point de Bateaux a Vapeur, The Lake Gun, Upside Down, reviews of Sedgwick's "A New-England Tale" and Irving's "Bracebridge Hall"Volume 36 (455 pp.): Notions of the AmericansVolume 37 (138 pp.): The American DemocratVolume 38 (215 pp.): Review of "An Examination of the New Tariff", Slavery in the United States, Letter to General Lafayette, A Letter to His Countrymen, writings on the Three Mile Point controversy, American and European Scenery Compared, New YorkVolume 39 (124 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: SwitzerlandVolume 40 (220 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: The RhineVolume 41 (238 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: FranceVolume 42 (248 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: EnglandVolume 43 (239 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: ItalyVolume 44 (551 pp.): History of the Navy of the United StatesVolume 45 (274 pp.): Naval BiographiesVolume 46 (178 pp.): Ned MyersVolume 47 (294 pp.): Reviews of Clark's "Naval History of the United States", Scoresby's "Account of the Arctic Regions" and Parry's "Journal of a Voyage of Discovery", Comparative Resources of the American Navy, Hints on Manning the Navy, The Edinburgh Review on James's Naval Occurrances and Cooper's Naval History, The Cruise of the Somers, Old Ironsides, The Battle of Plattsburg BayVolume 48 (82 pp.): The Eclipse, Preface to Elinor Wyllys, diary extracts, The Chronicles of CooperstownThe Works have all been newly typeset for this edition.
Most of the texts (Ned Myers and the novels except Tales for Fifteen and Autobiography Of a Pocket-Handkerchief) have been taken from the "Iroquois Edition" (New York and London: G.
P. Putnam's Sons, not dated, 33 vols.). The remainder are chiefly from print editions now in the public domain, except for "A Letter to my Countrymen," "The Chronicles of Cooperstown," "Pas de Bateaux a Vapeur-Une Vision," "Review of the Somers Mutiny Courtmartial," "Upside Down; or the World in Petticoats," "The Lake Gun," "New York" and "Old Ironsides," for which the source texts are the electronic versions kindly provided by the James Fenimore Cooper Society.Dr. Bob Lawson-Peebles, Senior Lecturer at Exeter University and a leading authority on American literature and Fenimore Cooper in particular, has written a new critical introduction to the Works.
