Reading Cooper, Teaching Cooper (AMS Studies in the Nineteenth-century)

This collection of 19 lively, informative, and readable essays, intended as a companion to a study of Cooper, will encourage serious and renewed discussion for twenty-first century readings of America's first successful and popular novelist. The volume's contributors, internationally-known Cooper scholars, establish an appropriate context for discussing the author across disciplines from language and literature to American Studies and history. Their essays provide appropriate paths to understanding Cooper's literary biography; reveal the range of his oeuvre (including his romances of forest and sea, tales of revolutionary and colonial history, and novels of politics and society); and present the untold story of his reputation and influence on later writers, in America and abroad. The volume is also an invaluable sourcebook of practical materials and historical context. Essays identify textually reliable and readily available editions of Cooper's fiction and non-fiction; survey primary and secondary materials including film adaptations; and trace for the reader the development of relevant American attitudes towards democracy, race, and environment. The critical discussions and useful resources in ""Reading Cooper, Teaching Cooper"" will benefit scholars, teachers, and students by providing an informed basis for the appreciation of Cooper's life and the impact of his literary career.