The Works of James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851).
The Works of James Fenimore Cooper: Pathfinder Edition.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 189-?.
Call Number: PS 1400 .E92x
Philip J. Hohlweck Memorial Collection
Stacks, Golda Meir Library

Limited Edition of 1000 numbered sets. Cooper's death in 1851 renewed interest in his work; collected editions appeared often in the next fifty years. This Putnam edition was issued in sixteen volumes and sold by subscription. The Last of the Mohicans and Jack Tier (1848) make up volume seven, with the other four Leatherstocking Tales issued separately throughout the series in no particular order.

The iconographic stature of The Leatherstocking Tales in American literature began to unravel in 1895. Mark Twain published a scathing essay berating the literary merit of Cooper's work. The now famous "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences," published in the July 1895 North American Review, ridiculed Cooper's florid style and contrived plotlines, calling The Deerslayer "a literary delirium tremens."