James Fenimore Cooper papers

Access and use

Location of collection:
University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400110
160 McCormick Rd
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Brenda Gunn
Phone: (434) 924-1037
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Restrictions:

This collection has been minimally processed and is open for research.

Preferred citation:

MSS 6245, James Fenimore Cooper papers, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Summary

Extent:
0.03 Cubic Feet One letter-sized file folder
Creator:
Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851 and Gerald W. Cloud Rare Books
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

MSS 6245, James Fenimore Cooper papers, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Background

Scope and content:

This addition to MSS 6245, James Fenimore Cooper papers, contains a one-leaf, signed autograph letter from Cooper to Armand Carrel (1800–1836), editor of the Paris daily newspaper, Le National. The letter requests copies of magazine issues containing his letters to the paper regarding the then-ongoing Finance Controversy of 1831–1832 and a duplicate of the issue containing his fourth letter. The letters he requests concern Cooper's views on the Finance Controversy, a debate regarding the cost of government, during which he publicly sided with and defended the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette argued against the claims of Sebastien Louis Saulnier, a journalist at the Revue Britannique, that a limited monarchical government was more financially efficient than a republic. Cooper had published a "Letter to General Lafayette" in December 1831 and subsequently contributed a series of letters to Le National between February 24 and March 7, 1832. These are the letters Copper was referring to in his letter. Cooper, who was residing in Paris at the time, stated his intention to "send the whole controversy to America" and requested the magazines for the purpose of publishing a pamphlet.

Biographical / historical:

James Fenimore Cooper was born on September 15, 1789, in Burlington, New Jersey, as the eleventh of twelve children of William Cooper and Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper. Shortly after his first birthday, the family relocated to Cooperstown, New York, a settlement his father had founded on a large tract of land at the headwaters of the Susquehanna River. William Cooper was a prominent landowner, judge, and Federalist congressman, and James grew up in privileged circumstances on the New York frontier. He attended Yale College beginning at age thirteen but was expelled in 1805. He subsequently sailed on a merchant vessel before receiving a commission as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy in 1808. He resigned his commission in 1811 upon marrying Susan De Lancey, daughter of a wealthy Westchester County family, and settled into the life of a country gentleman. Cooper did not begin writing until 1820, and it was his second novel, The Spy (1821), a tale of espionage during the American Revolution, that established his reputation. He went on to produce the five novels of the Leatherstocking Tales: The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841), all featuring the frontier scout Natty Bumppo, which became his most enduring literary legacy.

In 1826, Cooper moved his family to Europe, where they remained until 1833, residing primarily in France and also traveling in Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. He served informally as U.S. consul at Lyon and developed a close friendship with the Marquis de Lafayette. His years abroad deepened his republican convictions and drew him into European political affairs. He published The Bravo in 1831, a novel set in Venice that attacked oligarchical government, and became increasingly engaged as a political writer. In late 1831, Cooper entered the Finance Controversy, a public debate sparked in the French Chamber of Deputies when Lafayette cited the United States government as a model of fiscal economy. Sébastien Louis Saulnier, a journalist at the Revue Britannique, challenged Lafayette's figures, arguing that a limited monarchy was more cost-efficient than a republic. Cooper responded with a Letter to General Lafayette on the Expenditure of the United States of America, published in Paris in December 1831, defending the American republican model. He then contributed a series of letters to the Parisian daily Le National between February 24 and March 7, 1832, continuing the argument. He intended to compile these writings into a pamphlet for American audiences. After returning to the United States in 1833, Cooper published A Letter to My Countrymen (1834), in which he gave his own account of the controversy and criticized American press coverage of it. He spent much of the remainder of his life in Cooperstown and continued writing novels, works of social criticism, and a History of the Navy of the United States of America (1839). He died in Cooperstown on September 14, 1851, one day before his sixty-second birthday.

References

Dekker, George, and John P. McWilliams, eds. Fenimore Cooper: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.

Grossman, James. James Fenimore Cooper. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1949.

Spiller, Robert E. Fenimore Cooper: Critic of His Times. New York: Minton, Balch & Company, 1931.

Cooper, James Fenimore. Letter of J. Fenimore Cooper, to Gen. Lafayette, on the Expenditure of the United States of America. Paris: Baudry's Foreign Library, 1831. Facsimile reprint, with a bibliographical note by Robert E. Spiller. New York: Columbia University Press for the Facsimile Text Society, 1931.

"James Fenimore Cooper." Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed April 20, 2026. https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Fenimore-Cooper.

Acquisition information:
This collection was purchased from Gerald W. Cloud Rare Books by the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia on 6 February 2026.
Processing information:

This collection was processed as an addition to MSS 6245, James Fenimore Cooper papers. Previous accretions to MSS 6245 can be accessed via Virgo search. This resource record contains only one letter sent by James Fenimore Cooper to Armand Carrel on March 7, 1832. Earlier accretions to MSS 6245 should be referenced for related James Fenimore Cooper papers resources.

Physical description:
Good
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard