Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
1895
Mark Twain, never one to hold his tongue, turns his savage wit on America's own literary golden boy. This is no gentle literary critique, it is a full-frontal assault on James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, picking apart every improbability, every clunky exchange, every character who seems to have wandered in from a different novel entirely. Twain systematically dismantles Cooper's narrative choices with the precision of a surgeon and the glee of a prankster, using examples from The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder to build his case. What emerges is not just a critique of one author's shortcomings but a passionate argument for what fiction could and should be: believable, coherent, alive. The essay crackles with Twain's characteristic humor while making a genuine case for literary standards. It remains essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what makes storytelling work, and what makes it fail.
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“In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.””
— Mark Twain
“I’ll tell every one in the world that you are the only one that matters.””
— Mark Twain
“I'm going to stay with you. If you go to jail, we might as well both go.””
— Mark Twain
“Remember that he who conquers himself is greater than the one who conquers a city.””
— Mark Twain
“And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes."Oh, shut up and get something to read," George said. He was reading again.His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees. "Anyway, I want a cat," she said. "I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat." George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square.””
— Mark Twain
“I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel, she said. I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.””
— Mark Twain
“Maera lay still, his head on his arms, his face in the sand. He felt warm and sticky from the bleeding. Each time he felt the horn coming. Sometimes the bull only bumped him with his head. Once the horn went all the way through him and he felt it go into the sand. Some one had the bull by the tail. They were swearing at him and flopping the cape in his face. Then the bull was gone. Some men picked Maera up and started to run with him toward the barriers through the gate out the passageway around under the grandstand to the infirmary. They laid Maera down on the cot and one of the men went out for the doctor. The others stood around. The doctor came running from the coral where he had been sewing up picador horses. He had to stop and wash his hands. There was a great shouting going on in the grandstand overhead. Maera felt everything getting larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then it got larger and larger and larger and then smaller and smaller. Then everything commenced to run faster and faster as when they speed up a cinematograph film. Then he was dead.””
— Mark Twain
“Isn't love any fun? Marjorie said."No," Nick said.””
— Mark Twain
“Dear Jesus, please get me out. Christ, please, please, please, Christ. If you only keep me from being killed I'll do anything you say. I believe in you and I'll tell everybody in the world that you are the only thing that matters. Please, please, dear Jesus' The shelling moved further up the line. We went to work on the trench and in the morning the sun came up and the day was hot and muggy and cheerful and quiet. The next night back at Mestre he did not tell the girl he went upstairs with at the Villa Rosa about Jesus. And he never told anybody.””
— Mark Twain
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Twain, Mark. Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences. Lex, lex-books.com/book/fenimore-cooper-s-literary-offences-7d68bc85-5639-41aa-bd33-b04fa35132c7.Twain, M. (1895). Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/fenimore-cooper-s-literary-offences-7d68bc85-5639-41aa-bd33-b04fa35132c7Twain, Mark. Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/fenimore-cooper-s-literary-offences-7d68bc85-5639-41aa-bd33-b04fa35132c7.
