When I pulled off the New Jersey Turnpike today to grab lunch before a meeting, I was delighted to see that the service center had been named after James Fenimore Cooper. I managed to resist the overwhelming urge to ask my young waiter if he knew who Cooper was, figuring that even if he had, he hadn’t read any of his work.
As far as I know, Cooper’s work isn’t presented to high school students anymore, not even when I was in school. That is a bitter shame. His great creation, Natty Bumppo, was the Jason Bourne for readers in the early nineteenth century. In a collection of books collectively referred to as The Leatherstocking Tales, Natty was the consummate frontier guide and reluctant hero who encountered fascinating action during the French and Indian War. He often lived among the Indians, who called him Hawkeye for his prowess with a musket. (“Hawkeye” Pierce of the TV series M*A*S*H got his nickname from his TV father who loved Cooper’s books.)
Another Hollywood note – one Leatherstocking Tale, The Last of the Mohicans, is portrayed with remarkable fidelity in the 1992 movie of the same name. I have a 1925 Scribner’s edition of The Deerslayer, another Hawkeye tale, given to me by my mother who introduced me to the series.
Along with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, James Fenimore Cooper was one of the great early American voices in literature. Treat yourself to the romance and action of his stories describing life in pre-Revolution America.
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