with all the details of a seafaring life. When it is read at this late day it is difficult to understand why it should have excited the rancor that it did. Any one of the present generation who is reasonably fair-minded must see that it is the work of a judicial mind, which seeks to do exact justice, irrespective of patriotic considerations. It was its fate, however, to stir up controversies as harsh and enduring as any of those in which its author was previously engaged, and it was freely denounced on both sides of the ocean as grossly unfair for diametrically opposite reasons. Cooper's facts have borne the test of time, and the work must always remain an authority on the subject treated. It was highly successful commercially, and went through three editions before the author's death, which event interrupted a continuation of the work intended to include the Mexican war. As one of the most successful of authors, Cooper's fame is assured. The generation that now reads the “Leather-stocking Tales,” “The Pilot,” “Wing and Wing,” and the rest of his stories of adventure, know him only as a master of fine descriptive English, with a tendency now and then to prolix generalization. His libel suits and controversies are forgotten, his offensive criticisms are rarely read, and he is remembered only as the most brilliant and successful of American novelists.
The greater part of Cooper's title-pages, in the original editions at least, do not bear his name. They are “by the author of, etc., etc.” The controversial papers usually bore his name. In the “Knickerbocker,” “Graham's,” and the “Naval” magazines and elsewhere, he published many valuable contributions, letters, and some serial and short stories that afterward appeared in book-form. Several posthumous publications appeared in “Putnam's Magazine.” A work on “The Towns of Manhattan” was in press at the time of his death, but a fire destroyed the printed portion, and only a part of the manuscript was recovered. A few books have been erroneously ascribed to him, but they are not of sufficient importance to be now mentioned. The following list embraces all his principal works: “Precaution,” a novel (New York, 1820; English edition, 1821); “The Spy, a Tale of the Neutral Ground” (1821; English edition, 1822); “The Pioneers, or the Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale” (1823; English ed., and London, 1823); “ The Pilot, a Tale of the Sea” (1823); “Lionel Lincoln, or the Leaguer of Boston” (1825); “The Last of the Mohicans, a Narrative of 1757” (Philadelphia, 1826); “The Prairie, a Tale” (1827); “The Red Kover, a Tale” (1828); “Notions of the Americans; Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor” (1828); “The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, a Tale” (1829); English title, “The Borderers, or the Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,” also published as “The Heathcotes”; “ The Water-Witch, or the Skimmer of the Seas; a Tale” (1830); “The Bravo, a Tale” (1831); “Letter of J. Fenimore Cooper to Gen. Lafayette on the Expenditure of the United States of America” (Paris, 1831); “The Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines; a Legend of the Rhine” (Philadelphia, 1832); “The Headsman, or the Abbaye des Vignerons; a Tale” (1833); “A Letter to his Countrymen” (New York, 1834); “The Monikins” (Philadelphia, 1835); “Sketches of Switzerland” (1836); English title, “Excursions in Switzerland”; “A Residence in France, with an Excursion up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland”; “Gleanings in Europe” (1837); English title, “Recollections of Europe”; “Gleanings in Europe — England” (1837); English title, “England, with Sketches of Society in the Metropolis ”; “Gleanings in Europe — Italy” (1838); English title, “Excursions in Italy”; “The American Democrat, or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America” (Cooperstown, 1838); “The Chronicles of Cooperstown” (1838); “Homeward Bound, or the Chase; a Tale of the Sea” (Philadelphia, 1838); “Home, as Found” (Philadelphia, 1838); English title, “Eve Effingham, or Home”; “History of the Navy of the United States of America” (1839); “The Pathfinder, or the Inland Sea” (1840); “Mercedes of Castile, or the Voyage to Cathay” (1840); English title, “Mercedes of Castile, a Romance of the Days of Columbus”; “The Deerslayer, or the First War Path; a Tale” (Philadelphia, 1841); “The Two Admirals, a Tale” (1842); “The Wing-and-Wing, or Le Feu-Follel; a Tale” (1842); English title, “The Jack o' Lantern (Le Feu-Follet), or the Privateer”; “Richard Dale”; “The Battle of Lake Erie, or Answers to Messrs. Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie” (Cooperstown, 1843); “Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll; a Tale” (Philadelphia, 1843); “Ned Myers, or a Life before the Mast” (1843); “Afloat and Ashore, or the Adventures of Miles Wallingford” (published by the author, 1844; 2d series, New York, 1844; English title, “Lucy Hardinge”); “Proceedings of the Naval Court-Martial in the Case of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, a Commander in the Navy of the United States, etc., including the Charges and Specifications of Charges preferred against him by the Secretary of the Navy, to which is annexed an Elaborate Review” (1844); “Satanstoe, or the Littlepage Manuscripts; a Tale of the Colony” (1845); “The Chainbearer, or the Littlepage Manuscripts” (1846); “Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers” (Philadelphia and Auburn, 1846); “The Redskins, or Indian and Injin: being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts ” (New York, 1846); English title, “Ravensnest, or the Redskins”; “The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak; a Tale of the Pacific” (New York, 1847); the English title was “Mark's Reef, or the Crater”; “Jack Tier, or the Florida Reefs” (1848); “The Oak Openings, or the Bee Hunter” (1848); English title, “The Bee Hunter, or the Oak Openings”; “The Sea Lions, or the Lost Sealers” (1849); “The Ways of the Hour; a Tale” (1850). See “Memorial Discourse” by William Cullen Bryant, with speeches by Daniel Webster and others (New York, 1852); “The Home of Cooper,” by R. B. Coffin (Barry Gray) (1872); “James Fenimore Cooper,” by Thomas Rainsford Lounsbury (Boston, 1882); and “Bryant and his Friends” (New York, 1886). — His daughter, Susan Fenimore, author, b. in Scarsdale, N. Y., in 1813; d. in Cooperstown, N. Y., 31 Dec., 1894. She was the second child, and during the latter years of her father's life she became his secretary and amanuensis, and but for her father's prohibition would naturally have become his biographer. In 1873 she founded an orphanage in Cooperstown, and under her superintendence it became in a few years a prosperous charitable institution. It was begun in a modest house in a small way with five pupils; now the building, which was erected in 1883, shelters ninety boys and girls. The orphans are taken when quite young, are fed, clothed, and educated in the ordinary English branches, and when old enough positions are found for them in good Christian families. Some of them before leaving are taught to earn their own living. In furtherance of the work to which she has consecrated her later years, and which she terms her “life work,” during 1886 she established “The
