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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

Listings for Author:  

James Fenimore Cooper

  

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James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans

'Mary Lakeman, a Cornish fisherman's daughter, confirmed what George Orwell had written in "Riding Down from Bangor": "Little Women", "Good Wives", "What Katy Did", "Avonlea", "Tom Sawyer", "Huckleberry Finn", and "The Last of the Mohicans" all created a romantic childhood vision of unlimited freedom and open space. "For me Jo, Beth and Laurie are right at the heart of a permanent unalterable American scene", she wrote, "and I can turn on Louisa M. Alcott and others so powerfully that Nixon and Watergate are completely blacked out".'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Lakeman      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans

'East End socialist Walter Southgate remembered that Dick Turpin and Buffalo Bill stories "were condemned by our teachers (all from middle class backgrounds) who would confiscate them", but he appreciated the generic similarities to "Robinson Crusoe", the Waverley novels and "The Last of the Mohicans".'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Southgate      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : 

'James Williams admitted that, growing up in rural Wales, "I'd read anything rather than not read at all. I read a great deal of rubbish, and books that were too 'old', or too 'young' for me". He consumed the Gem, Magnet and Sexton Blake as well as the standard boys' authors (Henty, Ballantyne, Marryat, Fenimore Cooper, Twain) but also Dickens, Scott, Trollope, the Brontes, George Eliot, even Prescott's "The Conquest of Peru" and "The Conquest of Mexico". He picked "The Canterbury Tales" out of an odd pile of used books for sale, gradually puzzled out the Middle English, and eventually adopted Chaucer as his favourite poet'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: James Williams      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans

'W.J. Brown was introduced to literature by "Robinson Crusoe", "She", "The Last of the Mohicans", and "Around the World in Eighty Days", and he never moved far beyond that level. He tried "The Idiot" and "The Brothers Karamazov", but found them too depressing, perhaps because his life was anything but Dostoevskian'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: William John Brown      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : Spy, The

'The most spirit-stirring author, next to the Great Unknown [walter Scott], that I have met with, is the American who has written the spy, and the Last of the Mohicans, & various pothers. He copies nobody, & he has an energy, a power of developing what he has previously enveloped, and of keeping the interest upon the stretch, that is admirable.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : Last of the Mohicans, The

'The most spirit-stirring author, next to the Great Unknown [walter Scott], that I have met with, is the American who has written the spy, and the Last of the Mohicans, & various pothers. He copies nobody, & he has an energy, a power of developing what he has previously enveloped, and of keeping the interest upon the stretch, that is admirable.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Sarah Harriet Burney      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans

'You have promised me to read these stories and I would recommend you to begin with "The Last of the Mohicans"-- then go on with "Deerslayer" and end with the "Prairie". I read them at your age in that order;[..] Thirty four years ago is a long long time to look back upon.' Hence follows further comments about the language and content.

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Deerslayer

'You have promised me to read these stories and I would recommend you to begin with "The Last of the Mohicans"-- then go on with "Deerslayer" and end with the "Prairie". I read them at your age in that order;[..] Thirty four years ago is a long long time to look back upon.' Hence follows further comments about the language and content.

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Prairie

'You have promised me to read these stories and I would recommend you to begin with "The Last of the Mohicans"-- then go on with "Deerslayer" and end with the "Prairie". I read them at your age in that order;[..] Thirty four years ago is a long long time to look back upon.' Hence follows further comments about the language and content.

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : Prairie

Monday, 28 January 1828: 'I have read Cooper's Prairie, better I think than his Red Rover in which you never got foot on shore and to understand entirely the incidents of the story it requires too much nautical language. It is very clever though.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Scott      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans

'He [Joseph Conrad] would read to me for long periods and make birds and other things out of sheets of paper which he folded with great dexterity. [...] His choice of books always met with my approval; I believe he must have read them all during his youth and enjoyed re-reading them almost as much as I enjoyed listening. Among them were Charles Kingsley's "Greek Heroes", Fennimore [sic] Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans", "[The] Deerslayer", "The Pathfinder" and Captain Marryat's "Peter Simple", "[Mr] Midshipman Easy",etc.[...] Some of these volumes [...] are still on my bookshelves here with his signature inside the cover.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Deerslayer or The First Warpath

'He [Joseph Conrad] would read to me for long periods and make birds and other things out of sheets of paper which he folded with great dexterity. [...] His choice of books always met with my approval; I believe he must have read them all during his youth and enjoyed re-reading them almost as much as I enjoyed listening. Among them were Charles Kingsley's "Greek Heroes", Fennimore [sic] Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans", "[The] Deerslayer", "The Pathfinder" and Captain Marryat's "Peter Simple", "[Mr] Midshipman Easy",etc.[...] Some of these volumes [...] are still on my bookshelves here with his signature inside the cover.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Pathfinder or The Inland Sea

'He [Joseph Conrad] would read to me for long periods and make birds and other things out of sheets of paper which he folded with great dexterity. [...] His choice of books always met with my approval; I believe he must have read them all during his youth and enjoyed re-reading them almost as much as I enjoyed listening. Among them were Charles Kingsley's "Greek Heroes", Fennimore [sic] Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans", "[The] Deerslayer", "The Pathfinder" and Captain Marryat's "Peter Simple", "[Mr] Midshipman Easy",etc.[...] Some of these volumes [...] are still on my bookshelves here with his signature inside the cover.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Conrad      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Two Admirals

'David Watson, M.A. of St. Andrews University, used to spend every spare moment of his day and whole Sundays on end with this writer [Ford] standing beside him at his pulpit and construing for him every imaginable kind of book from “Ataxerxes” of Madame de Scudéry and “Les Enfants de [sic] Capitaine Grant” by Jules Verne, to ode after ode of Tibullus, Fouqué’s “Udine”, all of the “Inferno”, the greater part of “Lazarillo de Tormes” and “Don Quixote” in the original[…] In addition, Mr. Watson had this writer translate for him orally into French “The Two Admirals”, “The Deerslayer”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”—which made this writer appreciate what a magnificent prose writer Cooper was.’

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Deerslayer, or, The First Warpath

'David Watson, M.A. of St. Andrews University, used to spend every spare moment of his day and whole Sundays on end with this writer [Ford] standing beside him at his pulpit and construing for him every imaginable kind of book from “Ataxerxes” of Madame de Scudéry and “Les Enfants de [sic] Capitaine Grant” by Jules Verne, to ode after ode of Tibullus, Fouqué’s “Udine”, all of the “Inferno”, the greater part of “Lazarillo de Tormes” and “Don Quixote” in the original[…] In addition, Mr. Watson had this writer translate for him orally into French “The Two Admirals”, “The Deerslayer”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”—which made this writer appreciate what a magnificent prose writer Cooper was.’

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

James Fenimore Cooper : The Last of the Mohicans

'David Watson, M.A. of St. Andrews University, used to spend every spare moment of his day and whole Sundays on end with this writer [Ford] standing beside him at his pulpit and construing for him every imaginable kind of book from “Ataxerxes” of Madame de Scudéry and “Les Enfants de [sic] Capitaine Grant” by Jules Verne, to ode after ode of Tibullus, Fouqué’s “Udine”, all of the “Inferno”, the greater part of “Lazarillo de Tormes” and “Don Quixote” in the original[…] In addition, Mr. Watson had this writer translate for him orally into French “The Two Admirals”, “The Deerslayer”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”—which made this writer appreciate what a magnificent prose writer Cooper was.’

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

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