Later Life
He turned again from pure fiction to the combination of art and controversy in which he had achieved distinction with the Littlepage Manuscripts (1845–1846). His next novel was The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak (1847), in which he attempted to introduce supernatural machinery. Jack Tier (1848) was a remaking of The Red Rover, and The Ways of the Hour was his last completed novel.
Cooper spent the last years of his life back in Cooperstown. In his will he authored a loving tribute to his wife Susan, which read in part:
-
-
- "I, James Fenimore Cooper, give and bequeath to my wife, Susan Augusta,
all my property, whether personal or mixed, to be enjoyed by her and her heirs forever..."
- "I, James Fenimore Cooper, give and bequeath to my wife, Susan Augusta,
-
Cooper had also made Susan executor of his will.
He died of dropsy on September 14, 1851, the day before his 62nd birthday. His interment was in Christ Episcopal Churchyard, where his father, William Cooper, was buried. Cooper's wife Susan survived her husband only by a few months and was buried by his side at Cooperstown. Several well-known writers, politicians, and other public figures honored Cooper's memory with a dinner in February 1852; Washington Irving served as a co-chairman for the event, along with William Cullen Bryant and Daniel Webster.
Read more about this topic: James Fenimore Cooper
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The child begins life as a pleasure-seeking animal; his infantile personality is organized around his own appetites and his own body. In the course of his rearing the goal of exclusive pleasure seeking must be modified drastically, the fundamental urges must be subject to the dictates of conscience and society, urges must be capable of postponement and in some instances of renunciation completely.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“Life isnt meant to be easy. Its hard to take being on the topor on the bottom. I guess Im something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things.... Life is one crisis after another.”
—Richard M. Nixon (19131995)