s
peculiar field, although he has had countless imitators, he has had no
equals. Cooper's experiences had prepared him well for the kingship of
this new realm in the world of fiction. His childhood was passed on
the borders of Otsego Lake, when central New York was still a
wilderness, with boundless forests stretching westward, broken only
here and there by the clearings of the pioneers. He was taken from
college (Yale) when still a lad, and sent to sea in a merchant vessel,
before the mast. Afterward he entered the navy and did duty on the
high seas and upon Lake Ontario, then surrounded by virgin forests. He
married and resigned his commission in 1811, just before the outbreak
of the war with England, so that he missed the opportunity of seeing
active service in any of those engagements on the ocean and our great
lakes which were so glorious to American arms. But he always retained
an active interest in naval affairs.

His first successful novel was _The Spy_, 1821, a tale of the
Revolutionary War, the scene of which was laid in Westchester County,
N. Y., where the author was then residing. The hero of this story,
Harvey Birch, was one of the most skillfully drawn figures on his
canvas. In 1833 he published the _Pioneers_, a work somewhat overladen
with description, in which he drew for material upon his boyish
recollections of frontier life at Cooperstown. This was the first of
the series of five romances known as the _Leatherstocking Tales_. The
others were the _Last of the Mohicans_, 1826; the _Prairie_, 1827; the
_Pathfinder_, 1840; and the _Deerslayer_, 1841. The hero of this
series, Natty Bumpo, or "Leatherstocking," was Cooper's one great
creation in the sphere of character, his most original addition to the
literature of the world in the way of a new human type. This backwoods
philosopher--to the conception of whom the historic exploits of Daniel
Boone perhaps supplied some hints; unschooled, but moved by noble
impulses and a natural sense of piety and justice; passionately
attached to the wilderness, and following its westering edge even unto
the prairies--this man of the woods was the first real American in
fiction. Hardly less individual and vital were the various types of
Indian character, in Chingachgook, Uncas, Hist, and the Huron warriors.
Inferior to these, but still vigorously though somewhat roughly drawn,
were the waifs and strays of civilization, whom duty, or the hope of
gain, or the