Author
James Fenimore Cooper is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, and published essays (1840–1849). 4 distinct works are named, most often in Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →
“The first enthusiasm about Cooper having subsided, we remember more his faults than his merits. His ready resentment and way of showing it in cases which it is the wont of gentlemen to pass by in silence, or meet with a good humoured smile, have caused unpleasant associations with his name, and his fellow citizens, in danger of being tormented by suits for libel, if they”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“it seemed much nearer one's ideal than Cooper's or Miss Sedgwick's fancy sketches”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller contrasts Forrest's portrayal of the Indian hero with 'Cooper's fancy sketches'
“they truly ascribe to the Indian a delicacy of sentiment and of fancy that justifies Cooper in such inventions as his Uncas.”
Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.
Inferred Fuller names Cooper and his character Uncas explicitly.
“Cooper makes the weak Hetty say to her beautiful sister "Of course, I don't compare you with Harry. A handsome man is always far handsomer than any woman.”
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
Inferred Named explicitly as 'Cooper'; 'the weak Hetty' and 'her beautiful sister' are characters from The Deerslayer. Named explicitly as 'Cooper.' Hetty Hutter and her sister Judith are characters in The Deerslayer (1841).
“In 1830, a friend, casually, said to him “Eugene, Cooper’s romances have brought the sea into fashion.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Franz Liszt and Eugene Sue." New-York Daily Tribune, 11 January 1845. · 11 January 1845
“the harmony of colouring were as unlike anything else I saw, as the Vicar of Wakefield to Cooper's novels.”
Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
“The first enthusiasm about Cooper having subsided, we remember more his faults than his merits.”
Fuller, Margaret. "American Literature." New-York Daily Tribune, 23 September 1846. · 23 September 1846
“So in this book we find what Cooper, Miss Sedgwick, and Mrs. Kirkland might see, as the writer did, but could hardly believe in enough”
Fuller, Margaret. "Ellen; Or Forgive and Forget . . ." New-York Daily Tribune, 10 January 1846. · 10 January 1846
“The first enthusiasm about Cooper having subsided, we remember more his faults than his merits.”
Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p306
Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p306; page given is to the 1869 reprint.
“Another marked figure that I encountered on this great show-board was Cooper, the author of “The Purgatory of Luicides,” a very remarkable poem”
Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . VIII." New-York Daily Tribune, 2 February 1847. · 2 February 1847
“legendary lore enough to furnish Cooper or Walter Scott with a thousand romances”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
“It will not be long before you see Greenough’s group; it is in spirit a pendent to Cooper’s novels.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XXIX." New-York Daily Tribune, 16 May 1849. · 16 May 1849