Cooper James Fenimore Cooper, Franklin Wayne Franklin

In 1831, James Fenimore Cooper told his publisher that he wanted to write a story set on Lake Ontario. The book was accepted, but with no hint that it would feature Natty Bumppo from the well-established Leather-Stocking Tales. The Pathfinder (1840) revisits Natty's military service, extending a story begun in The Last of the Mohicans, and introduces the complications of love against the backdrop of the French and Indian War. Wayne Franklin's introduction describes the personal and financial circumstances that led to Cooper's resurrection of his most popular character, underscoring the author's aim to offer Natty as a "Pathfinder" for a nation he feared had lost its moral bearings.The John Harvard Library edition reproduces the text of The Pathfinder from The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper (State University of New York Press).Since 1959 The John Harvard Library has been instrumental in publishing essential American writings in authoritative editions.

A historical adventure reminiscent of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley romances, Cooper’s novel centers on Harvey Birch, a common man wrongly suspected of being a spy for the British.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.  

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.

A definitive new biography of James Fenimore Cooper, early nineteenth century master of American popular fiction American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) has been credited with inventing and popularizing a wide variety of genre fiction, including the Western, the spy novel, the high seas adventure tale, and the Revolutionary War romance. America’s first crusading novelist, Cooper reminds us that literature is not a cloistered art; rather, it ought to be intimately engaged with the world.   In this second volume of his definitive biography, Wayne Franklin concentrates on the latter half of Cooper’s life, detailing a period of personal and political controversy, far-ranging international travel, and prolific literary creation. We hear of Cooper’s progressive views on race and slavery, his doubts about American expansionism, and his concern about the future prospects of the American Republic, while observing how his groundbreaking career management paved the way for later novelists to make a living through their writing. Franklin offers readers the most comprehensive portrait to date of this underappreciated American literary icon.