Posted by Jim at February 28th, 2004

Every so often, I remember the existence of The Gutenberg Project. When I do, I typically look up the odd classic and read it for a bit. Sometimes I just browse the indexes, making mental notes to check certain books out later.

Today I decided to read Mark Twain’s “FENIMORE COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENCES.”

In that article, he writes about Fenimore Cooper’s many literary flaws. Twain is, as might be expected, savagely funny, listing a number of problems in Cooper’s stories. Here’s one:

“10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep
interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he
shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad
ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in
it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned
together.”

I particularly like the bit in which he describes Cooper’s word choices and his characters’ use of “woodcraft.”

Read it for yourself.

You might also consider reading “The Deerslayer,” but I gather Twain doesn’t exactly recommend it. Or, to let Twain say it:

“Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of Deerslayer is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.”