Other Articles and Papers

Updated November 2006

This section of the website is reserved for Articles and Papers about James Fenimore Cooper, from varied sources. To the best of our knowledge, no currently copyrighted material is included except with the permission of the copyright owner.

The papers are archived here chronologically, but may also be accessed through the finding aids at Articles & Papers.

1899

• Wickes, W.K. (Principal, Syracuse High School), Prefatory Notes to The Last of the Mohicans. Critical preface to The Last of the Mohicans, New York: MacMillan, 1899. [1899 OTHER ARTICLES]

1956

• Clavel, Marcel (Faculté des Lettres d'Aix-en-Provence), What Fenimore Cooper Has Meant and What He Still Means To Me. "A propos du centenaire de la mort de FENIMORE COOPER et du Congrès de Cooperstown de Septembre 1951: A French Tribute to James Fenimore Cooper" in Annales de la Faculé des Lettres d'Aix-en-Provence, 1956, pp. 2-8. French Cooper scholar Marcel Clavel (1894-1976) describes his life-long fascination with Cooper. [1956 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Clavel, Marcel (Faculté des Lettres d'Aix-en-Provence), Cooper's Reputation One Century After His Death. "A propos du centenaire de la mort de FENIMORE COOPER et du Congrès de Cooperstown de Septembre 1951: A French Tribute to James Fenimore Cooper" in Annales de la Faculé des Lettres d'Aix-en-Provence, 1956, pp. 9-10. French Cooper scholar Marcel Clavel (1894-1976) pleads for a renewal of scholarly interest in Cooper. [1956 OTHER ARTICLES]

1969

• Goetzmann, William H. (University of Texas), James Fenimore Cooper : The Prairie. Hennig Cohen, ed., Landmarks of American Writing, New York: Basic Books, 1969, pp. 75-87. Analysis of novel, examining Cooper's sources and arguing that the heart of the novel is the redemption of Ishmael Bush. [1969 OTHER ARTICLES]

1979

• Alicino, Nicholas J. (SUNY-Oneonta), Character Development in Natty Bumppo. Paper originally given in George Test's Cooper Course at SUNY-Oneonta, in January 1979. Viewing the Leatherstocking Novels in their biographically-chronological order, rather than in the order written, nevertheless presents a coherent and persuasive portrait of Natty Bumppo's developing character. [1979 OTHER ARTICLES]

1982

• Viñuela Angulo, Urbano (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain), El Ideario Politico y Social de James Fenimore Cooper. Summary of a Cooper Roundtable at the 5th Annual Conference of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies (AEDEAN), Oviedo, Spain, 1982. [1982 OTHER ARTICLES
• Viñuela Angulo, Urbano (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain), La Polémica de James Fenimore Cooper con la prensa norteamericana a principios del siglo XIX. Cooper's controversies with the Whig Press. [1982 OTHER ARTICLES]

1983

• Viñuela Angulo, Urbano (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain), Dos Figuras Antagónicas en la Obra de James Fenimore Cooper Cooper's opposition of the "gentleman" and the "demagogue," particularly as discussed in The American Democrat. [1983 OTHER ARTICLES]

1988

• Evans, Constantine (Syracuse University), James Fenimore Cooper: Young Man to Author. Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, Vol. XXIII, No. 1 (Spring 1988), pp. 57-77. The personal challenges leading to Cooper's transformation from gentleman farmer to author. [1988 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Okada, Ryoichi (Niigata University, Japan), Irreconcilable Conflicts in The Pioneers. Chiba Review, No. 10 (1988), pp. 1-18. There can be no reconciliation between Natty Bumppo's "redskin" culture of nature and truth, and Judge Temple's "paleface" culture of artificiality and falsehood. A Japanese view. [1988 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Schachterle, Lance and Kent Ljungquist (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Fenimore Cooper's Literary Defenses: Twain and the Text of The Deerslayer. Joel Myerson, ed., Studies in the American Renaissance 1988, pp. 401-417. Point-by-point exposé of deliberate fabrications in Mark Twain's notorious "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (1895) [1988 OTHER ARTICLES]

1989

• Evans, Constantine (Syracuse University), An Unpublished Reminiscence of James Fenimore Cooper. Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, Vol. XXIV, No. 2 (Fall 1989), pp. 45-53. Transcription and commentary on a short manuscript by Chemistry Professor William Mather (1802-1890), recounting his impressions of Cooper during a visit to Cooperstown in 1844. [1989 OTHER ARTICLES]

1990

• Morton, Richard (McMaster University), The Deerslayer: Appearance, Reality and Expectation.. Chapter from an uncompleted book. Few things in the novel are what they at first seem, but in introducing Natty Bumppo as one who "is vitally aware of the often confusing interplay between appearances and realities," Cooper provides an "admirable preparation" for the Natty of the other Leatherstocking Tales. [1990 OTHER ARTICLES]

1992

• Evans, Constantine (Syracuse University), Fenimore Cooper's Libel Suits. Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, Vol. XXVII, No. 2 (Fall 1992), pp. 47-74. Analysis of Cooper's libel suits against William Holt Averell and James Watson Webb. [1992 OTHER ARTICLES]

1993

• Viñuela Angulo, Urbano (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain), James Fenimore Cooper: Entre la popularidade y la transformación textual. Analysis of Spanish translations of Cooper's novels, including a list of known translations. [1993 OTHER ARTICLES]

1997

• James Fenimore Cooper: The Birth of American Maritime Experience: Special Edition of The American Neptune: A Quarterly Journal of Maritime History and Arts, Volume 57, No. 4, Fall, 1997. Guest Editor: Robert Foulke. Copyright 1997, by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, and reproduced here with its kind permission. [NOTE: We have not reproduced the many nautical illustrations, from Cooper's novels and from his Naval History, included in the published texts.]
• Introductory Notes by Editor-in-Chief Barry Gough and Guest Editor Robert Foulke. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 296-297. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Franklin, Wayne (Northeastern University), Introduction: Becoming James Fenimore Cooper. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 299-314. Overview of the biographic study of Cooper; biographic, psychological and literary aspects of Cooper's 1826 assumption of "Fenimore" as a middle name. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Philbrick, Thomas (University of Pittsburgh, emeritus), Fact and Fiction: Uses of Maritime History in Cooper's Afloat and Ashore. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 315-321. Unlike the earlier romantic sea stories, this novel is autobiographical, realistic, and very much about property. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Dudley, William S. (Naval Historical Center), James Fenimore Cooper's Ned Myers: A Life Before the Mast. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 323-329. Importance to maritime history of Cooper's biography of an ordinary sailor. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Madison, Robert D. (United States Naval Academy), Nelson Resartus: Legitimate Order in Cooper's Fleet Novel. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 331-334. Lord Nelson and others as sources for The Two Admirals. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Egan, Hugh (Ithaca College) Enabling and Disabling the Lake Erie Discussion: James Fenimore Cooper and Alexander Slidell Mackenzie Respond to the Perry/Elliott Controversy. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 343-350. How the famous dispute over the Battle of Lake Erie began as a discussion of facts, and ended up as an increasingly nebulous argument about words. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Franklin, Wayne (Northeastern University), Cooper as Passenger. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 351-357. How Cooper's favored status as a Captain's protegé on the Stirling in 1806-07 affected his attitudes towards the sea both in his life and in novels such as Homeward Bound. (1838). [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Langley, Harold D. (Smithsonian Institution and Catholic University of America), Images of the Sailor in the Novels of James Fenimore Cooper. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 359-370. Validity of Cooper's portrayal of sailors in his nautical novels. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Madison, Robert D. (United States Naval Academy), Cooper and the Sea: A Bibliographical Note. The American Neptune, Vol. 57, No. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 371-372. Survey of Cooper's sea fiction and non-fiction, and of critical commentary about it. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Viñuela Angulo, Urbano (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain), Introducción -- El último mohicano. Introduction to a 1997 Spanish edition of The Last of the Mohicans, including list of known Spanish translations. [1997 OTHER ARTICLES]

• Ludski, Zoë (Ryerson Polytechnic University), My Coloured Thoughts: Last of the Mohicans and Perceptions of Mixed Race Peoples. 1999 Southwest Graduate Literature Symposium (Tempe, AZ, March 1999). Cora Munro and the problems of mixed-racial background. [1999 OTHER ARTICLES]

2000

• Gaul, Theresa Strouth (Texas Christian University), Teaching Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans in an American Literature Survey. Conference of the South Central Modern Language Association Conference (San Antonio, Nov. 2000). Strategies for using Mohicans effectively. [2000 OTHER ARTICLES]

2002

• Gentry, April D. (Savannah State University), Created Space: The Crater and the Pacific Frontier. The novel as a cautionary warning about American expansion in the Pacific, with especial reference to Hawaii. [2002 OTHER ARTICLES]

2004

• Pikus, Michael J. (Niagara County Community College), James Fenimore Cooper's New York: Crossing the Border From Fiction to History. In his final work, an introduction to a never-completed history, Cooper reflects both his dispondence with American civilization and his continued realism in accepting new interpretations of it. [2004 OTHER ARTICLES]
• Zeitvogel, Chuck (State University of New York College at Brockport), Gender Power and Social Class: The Role of Women in James Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder, Homeward Bound, Home as Found and The Ways of the Hour. In these works, "Female characters are only allowed to wield power in small, enclosed spaces, or in life or death situations.... Male characters...control all social space and political power." Master of Arts Thesis, Brockport, November 2004. [2004 OTHER ARTICLES]

2005

• Callahan, David (University of Aveiro, Portugal), Containing Manhood in James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer. For all its outdoor adventure, The Deerslayer is in many respects a novel raising issues of interior spaces and of femininity. [2005 OTHER ARTICLES]

2006

• Peprnik, Michal (Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic), Moravian Origins of J. F. Cooper's Indians. Cooper's Indians are based on the works of Moravian Missionary John Heckewelder. [2006 OTHER ARTICLES]

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