James Fenimore Cooper

The Bravo James Fenimore Cooper

Felix Octavius Carr "F. O. C." Darley (June 23, 1822 - March 27, 1888) was an American illustrator, known for his illustrations in works by well-known 19th-century authors, including James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Mary Mapes Dodge, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, George Lippard, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Donald Grant Mitchell, Clement Clarke Moore, Francis Parkman, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Nathaniel Parker Willis... Begun in 1830, amid the turmoil of the July Revolution in Paris, The Bravo depicts an early eighteenth-century Venice rife with deceit and cruelty, a place where oligarchic senators pretend to govern a republic for the benefit of the masses while using their secret councils to preserve their wealth. For Cooper, the heart of Venetian corruption was its "soulless corporation": councils of senators whose anonymity removed them from personal moral responsibility and whose regular turnover within their class guaranteed the immortality of their state. With French oligarchs quickly usurping their country's liberal revolution, Cooper framed his narrative of the "soulless corporation" to apply equally to contemporary France, aristocratic England, and money-mad America... James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 - September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances draw a picture of frontier and American Indian life in the early American days which created a unique form of American literature. He lived most of his life in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William on property that he owned. Cooper was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society. Cooper served in the U. S. Navy as a midshipman, which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. The novel that launched his career was The Spy, a tale about counter-espionage set during the American Revolutionary War and published in 1821. He also wrote numerous sea stories, and his best-known works are five historical novels of the frontier period known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper's works on the U. S. Navy have been well received among naval historians, but they were sometimes criticized by his contemporaries. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece, (although it was mercilessly mocked by Mark Twain).