The Last of The Mohicans - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The novel was first published in 1826 by Messrs. Carey & Lea, of Philadelphia. According to Susan Fenimore Cooper, its success was "greater than that of any previous book from the same pen" and "in Europe the book produced quite a startling effect."

Cooper's novels were popular, and sold in quantities, but reviewers were often critical, or even dismissive. For example, the London Magazine (May 1826) called the novel "clearly by much the worst of Mr Cooper's performances."

Mark Twain famously derides James Fenimore Cooper in Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, an essay published in North American Review (July 1895). Twain's primary complaint is what he considers a lack of variety in Cooper's style, along with verbiage. In the essay, Twain re-writes a small section of The Last of the Mohicans and claims that Cooper, "the generous spendthrift", used 100 extra and unnecessary words in the original version. He became an extremely outspoken critic not only of other authors, but also of other critics, suggesting that before praising Cooper's work, Professors Loundsbury, Brander Matthes, and Wilkie Collins "ought to have read some of it."

Re-reading the book himself for the purpose of a reissue in his later years, Cooper himself noted some inconsistencies of plot and characterisation, particularly the character of Munro, but observed that in general "the book must needs have some interest for the reader, since it could amuse even the writer, who had in a great measure forgotten the details of his own work."