The Spy | Page 2

no actual fighting, he gained considerable knowledge from
his service on Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain that he put to good
use later. Shortly before his resignation in May, 1811, he had married,
and for several years thereafter he lived along in a pleasant, leisurely
fashion, part of the time in Cooperstown and part of the time in
Westchester County, until almost accidentally he broke into the writing
of his first novel. Aside from the publication of his books, Cooper's
later life was essentially uneventful. He died at Cooperstown, on
September 14, 1851.
The connection of Cooper's best writing with the life he knew at first
hand is thus perfectly plain. In his novels dealing with the wilderness,
popularly known as the Leatherstocking Tales, he drew directly on his
knowledge of the backwoods and backwoodsmen as he gained it about
Cooperstown. In The Pioneers (1823) he dealt with the scenes of his
boyhood, scenes which lay very close to his heart; and in the other
volumes of this series, The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie
(1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and _The Deerslayer (1841), he
continued to write of the trappers and frontiersmen and outpost
garrisons and Indians who made up the forest life he knew so well.
Similarly, in the sea tales, which began with 'The Pilot'(1823) and
included 'The Red Rover'(1828), 'The Two Admirals' (1842) and 'The
Wing-and-Wing'(1842), he made full use of his experiences before the
mast and in the navy. The nautical accuracy of these tales of the sea
could scarcely have been attained by a "landlubber". It has much
practical significance, then, that Cooper chose material which he knew
intimately and which gripped his own interest. His success came like
Thackeray's and Stevenson's and Mark Twain's--without his having to
reach to the other side of the world after his material.

In considering Cooper's work as a novelist, nothing is more marked
than his originality. In these days we take novels based on American
history and novels of the sea for granted, but at the time when Cooper
published 'The Spy' and 'The Pilot' neither an American novel nor a
salt-water novel had ever been written. So far as Americans before
Cooper had written fiction at all, Washington Irving had been the only
one to cease from a timid imitation of British models. But Irving's
material was local, rather than national. It was Cooper who first told the
story of the conquest of the American continent. He caught the poetry
and the romantic thrill of both the American forest and the sea; he
dared to break away from literary conventions. His reward was an
immediate and widespread success, together with a secure place in the
history of his country's literature.
There was probably a two-fold reason for the success which Cooper's
novels won at home and abroad. In the first place, Cooper could invent
a good story and tell it well. He was a master of rapid, stirring narrative,
and his tales were elemental, not deep or subtle. Secondly, he created
interesting characters who had the restless energy, the passion for
adventure, the rugged confidence, of our American pioneers. First
among these great characters came Harvey Birch in 'The Spy', but
Cooper's real triumph was Natty Bumppo, who appears in all five of
the Leatherstocking Tales. This skilled trapper, faithful guide, brave
fighter, and homely philosopher was "the first real American in
fiction," an important contribution to the world's literature. In addition,
Cooper created the Indian of literature--perhaps a little too noble to be
entirely true to life--and various simple, strong seamen. His
Chingachgook and Uncas and Long Tom Coffin justly brought him
added fame. In these narrative gifts, as well as in the robustness of his
own character, Cooper was not unlike Sir Walter Scott. He once
modestly referred to himself as "a chip from Scott's block" and has
frequently been called "the American Scott."
But, of course, Cooper had limitations and faults. When he stepped
outside the definite boundaries of the life he knew, he was unable to
handle character effectively. His women are practically failures, and
like his military officers essentially interchangeable. His humor is

almost invariably labored and tedious. He occasionally allowed long
passages of description or long speeches by some minor character to
clog the progress of his action. Now and then, in inventing his plots, he
strained his readers' credulity somewhat. Finally, as a result of his rapid
writing, his work is uneven and without style in the sense that a careful
craftsman or a sensitive artist achieves it. He is even guilty of an
occasional error in grammar or word use which the young pupil in the
schools can detect. Yet his literary powers easily outweigh all these
weaknesses. He is unquestionably one of America's great novelists and
one of