A primer of American literature . teem. The Spy (1821) founda multitude of admirers, and was republished inEurope in many translations. This story, as wellas The Pioneers^ issued the next year, was thor-oughly national, and Cooper thenceforward occu-pied as his own the field of wild life in the novels were full of romantic interest, andshowed the public that American scenery and lifefurnished as good a foundation for fiction as thecastles of Europe. The Last of the Mohicans (1826)is one of the best of the remarkable group of storiescalled the Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper wasAmerican
A primer of American literature . teem. The Spy (1821) founda multitude of admirers, and was republished inEurope in many translations. This story, as wellas The Pioneers^ issued the next year, was thor-oughly national, and Cooper thenceforward occu-pied as his own the field of wild life in the novels were full of romantic interest, andshowed the public that American scenery and lifefurnished as good a foundation for fiction as thecastles of Europe. The Last of the Mohicans (1826)is one of the best of the remarkable group of storiescalled the Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper wasAmerican through and through. He did not hesi-tate in some of his later stories to satirize the louder national characteristics • but to him morethan any other author is due the increasing atten-tion to home subjects and heroes. From his writ-ings, undoubtedly, a part of the English public gotthe impression, which it has with difficulty cor-rected, that buffaloes and Indians form the mostconspicuous features in our civilization. Half of. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 73 Coopers better works were devoted to the sea, themost successful being The Pilot (1823) and The RedRover (1827). Coopers quarrels with his country-men were numerous, chiefly because he thoughtthem lukewarm in national pride ; and he increasedthe hostility of the newspaper press by a multitudeof libel suits, in many of which he was Pathfinder and The Deerslayer appeared in1840 and 1841 ; and Afloat and Ashore three yearslater. An elaborate Naval History of the UnitedStates and a series of biographies of naval officerswere among the other writings of this industriousauthor, who by no means confined himself to asingle field. His last book was The Ways of theHour^ an attack on the system of trial by jury, inthe form of a story, somewhat in the style lateradopted by Charles Reade. Coopers novels havewon high praise from the first critical authorities,including Bryant and Prescott, but his later books,with no diminutio
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