cooper james fenimore the last of the mohicans 1826

Then, comparing these two novels means confronting fiction and reality, fiction and history, myth and reality. On the other hand, the Orenda offers a more realistic view of the interaction between whites and Indians. The Last of the Mohicans, despite its historical accents, seem more intensely born out of the Cooper’s imagination, than out of his desire to talk about history. Both authors place the Indian world in the center of their novels, thus responding to a western fascination for the American-Indian. The two stories take place during the 7-year war between the Hurons, allies of the French and the Iroquois, allies of the English. The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.This thesis represents a comparative study between two works of fiction, The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (1826) and The Orenda by Joseph Boyden (2013) and questions their use of history in the literary representation of the Indian.

This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law.

All his novels utilized historical themes and helped to form the romantic popular sense of American history in the nineteenth century.įamous quotations by James Fenimore Cooper: But both at home and abroad Cooper was best known for his five Leatherstocking novels ( The Pioneers, 1823, The Last of the Mohicans, 1826, The Prairie, 1827, The Pathfinder, 1840, and The Deerslayer, 1841). More works quickly followed - The Pilot (1824), Lionel Lincoln (1825), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), and The Prairie (1827).īy the time of his death, Cooper had developed an international reputation as America's 'national novelist' and was probably more successful in the overseas market. His first tale, Precaution, was published in 1820 the work and its reception were agreeable enough to encourage Cooper to continue, and his next novel, The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground (1821) established him as an exciting new presence on the American literary scene.

He sailed twice to England and served at a frontier outpost on Lake Ontario before being assigned to recruit sailors in New York City, where he met his future wife.Īfter the deaths of his father and older brothers left him heavily in debt, Cooper cast about for a reliable source of income, and his career as a writer began. Early experiences in a frontier town gave Cooper the background for The Pioneers (1823), among other frontier novels.Īfter being expelled from Yale College, in 1806 he tried to run away to sea, but his father intervened and got him a commission in the United States Navy.

In 1790, the family moved to Lake Otsego, in upstate New York. James Fenimore Cooper was born on Septemin Burlington, New Jersey, the twelfth of thirteen children.

Cooper james fenimore the last of the mohicans 1826