Best Selling Books by James Fenimore Cooper

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 - September 14, 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century.

James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey in 1789 to William Cooper and Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper, the eleventh of 12 children, most of whom died during infancy or childhood. He was descended from James Cooper of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, who emigrated to the American colonies in 1679. James and his wife were Quakers who purchased plots of land in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Seventy-five years after his arrival in America, his great-grandson William was born on December 2, 1754.Shortly after James'' first birthday, his family moved to Cooperstown, New York, a community founded by his father on a large piece of land which he had bought for development. Later, his father was elected as a United States Congressman from Otsego County. Their town was in a central area of New York that had previously been occupied by the Iroquois of the Six Nations. The Iroquois were forced to cede their territory after British defeat in the Revolutionary War, as they had been allies. Shortly after the American Revolutionary War, the state opened up these former Iroquois lands for sale and development. Cooper''s father purchased several thousand acres of land in upstate New York along the head-waters of the Susquehanna River. By 1788, William Cooper had selected and surveyed the site where Cooperstown would be established. He erected a home on the shore of Otsego lake and moved his family there in the autumn of 1790. He soon began construction of the mansion that would be known as Otsego Hall. It was completed in 1799 when James was ten.At age 13, Cooper was enrolled at Yale, but he incited a dangerous prank that involved blowing up another student''s door - after having already locked a donkey in a recitation room. Cooper was expelled in his third year without completing his degree. Disenchanted with college, he obtained work in 1806 as a sailor and, at age 17, joined the crew of a merchant vessel. By 1811, he obtained the rank of midshipman in the fledgling United States Navy, conferred upon him on an officer''s warrant signed by Thomas Jefferson. At 20, Cooper inherited a fortune from his father. He married Susan Augusta de Lancey at Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York on January 1, 1811 at age 21.[10] She was the daughter of a wealthy family who remained loyal to Great Britain during the American Revolution. They had seven children, five of whom lived to adulthood. Their daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper was a writer on nature, female suffrage, and other topics. She and her father often edited each other''s work. Among his descendants was Paul Fenimore Cooper (1899-1970), who also became a writer

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Heidenmauer; or, The Benedictines – A Story of the Rhine is a novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1832. The novel is a socio-political novel set in 16th century Bavaria that focuses on the competition between various socio-political classes and the tension caused by the Reformation.The Heidenmauer is Cooper's second novel in what one critic would call his European Trilogy, following The Bravo and preceding The Headsman. Like the other novels set in Europe, The Heidenmauer is intent on showing the darker side of European institutions in favor of an American perspective.[From the English Wikipedia][1] [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heidenmauer

Described in the introduction as a manuscript sent to the author in Geneva, Switzerland, by a Viscount Householder in gratitude for the author's having saved the Viscount's beautiful wife from accidental death, this novel uses the framework of a south-polar voyage to two unknown countries, Leaphigh [markedly similar in its institutions to England] and Leaplow [singularly like the United States in its principles and practices], to satirize the social, political, and judicial systems of the two Western countries. The "voyage" appears to have been imaginary, the product of the manuscript writer's delirium during an illness in Paris, but the points made are indelible ones. The first-person narrative device [in the voice of John Goldencalf, Viscount of Householder] adds verisimilitude to the account.

It is an old remark, that the life of any man, could the incidents be faithfully told, would possess interest and instruction for the general reader. The conviction of the perfect truth of this saying, has induced the writer to commit to paper, the vicissitudes, escapes, and opinions of one of his old shipmates, as a sure means of giving the public some just notions of the career of a common sailor.