Mark Twain takes on the hapless Fenimore Cooper

Chicago Sun-Times | March 18, 1990| | Copyright

Not long ago a reader in Milwaukie, Ore., wrote to inquire about Mark Twain's hilarious essay on "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." Her note provided an opportunity to dig up the piece, and I happily pass some of the wisdom along.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) is a forgotten figure in American literature, but he enjoyed great popularity a century ago. As a boy in the 1920s, I gobbled up his Leatherstocking Tales. In my innocence I regarded Cooper as a marvelous writer.

And so he was, in the sense that his prose was something to be marveled at. According to Twain: "Cooper's art ...

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