James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) invented the key forms of American fiction—the Western, the sea tale, the Revolutionary War romance. Furthermore, Cooper turned novel writing from a polite diversion into a paying career. He influenced Herman Melville, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Francis Parkman, and even Mark Twain—who felt the need to flagellate Cooper for his “literary offenses.” His novels mark the starting point for any history of our environmental conscience. Far from complicit in the cleansings of Native Americans that characterized the era, Cooper’s fictions traced native losses to their economic sources. Perhaps no other American writer stands in greater need of a major reevaluation than Cooper. This is the first treatment of Cooper’s life to be based on full access to his family papers. Cooper’s life, as Franklin relates it, is the story of how, in literature and countless other endeavors, Americans in his period sought to solidify their political and cultural economic independence from Britain and, as the Revolutionary generation died, stipulate what the maturing republic was to become. The first of two volumes, James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years covers Cooper’s life from his boyhood up to 1826, when, at the age of thirty-six, he left with his wife and five children for Europe.

Over two million men were recruited for the regiments from the Confederate States of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Cherokee Nation, and parts of Maryland throughout 18611865! The Adjutants of Confederate units persevered over three years of unbelievable hardship valorously and under constant threat of death! Honoring all Kentuckians past and present! Part of the real life story is given to us through the memoirs and diary of Mr. J. B. Jones, war clerk, Richmond, Virginia; President Davis, and numerous generals. Every attempt has been made to fully represent our adjutant general in this book to include a departmental and field roster of all adjutants (AAGs) and clerks who selfishly served their state, their conscience, and the Confederacy!

William Cooper and James Fenimore Cooper, a father and son who embodied the contradictions that divided America in the early years of the Republic, are brought to life in this Pulitzer Prize-winning book. William Cooper rose from humble origins to become a wealthy land speculator and U.S. congressman in what had until lately been the wilderness of upstate New York, but his high-handed style of governing resulted in his fall from power and political disgrace. His son James Fenimore Cooper became one of this country’s first popular novelists with a book, The Pioneers, that tried to come to terms with his father’s failure and imaginatively reclaim the estate he had lost. In William Cooper’s Town, Alan Taylor dramatizes the class between gentility and democracy that was one of the principal consequences of the American Revolution, a struggle that was waged both at the polls and on the pages of our national literature. Taylor shows how Americans resolved their revolution through the creation of new social reforms and new stories that evolved with the expansion of our frontier.

Vols. -27, no. 5, -May 1918 include a section in German; the section from Feb. 1903-May 1918 has title: Die Internationale Küfer-Zeitung.