One hundred and fifty years ago Cooper was one of the world's most widely read novelists and one of the most highly acclaimed. During his lifetime a number of well-publicized quarrels with his country caused his prestige to suffer, but at his death in 1851 he maintained his place as the foremost American novelist. As recently as two generations ago, reading Cooper was still a standard part of an American adolescence, although even his best books were generally thought of merely as "boys' books" and put away with the other things of childhood. Today, however, his popular audience has almost completely disappeared: now that his novels have been moved from a shelf in the parlor to a box in the attic, he is known chiefly by his reputation—which is bad enough to discourage most readers. That is unfortunate: the thirty-two novels he wrote, at least the majority of them, are considerably better than that reputation.
