Note 13 — THE EARLY NOVELS OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1821–1831)

The Pioneers (Houghton Mifflin ed.). Introduction, xxxiii, states Cooper’s intention to generalize; it further states his theory of fiction: “Rigid adhesion to truth, an indispensable requisite in history and travels, destroys the charm of fiction; for all that is necessary to be conveyed to the mind by the latter had better be done by delineations of principles, and of characters in their classes, than by a too fastidious attention to originals.”