Author | James Fenimore Cooper |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Historical fiction |
Publication date | 1825 |
Lionel Lincoln is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1825. Set in the American Revolutionary War, the novel follows Lionel Lincoln, a Boston-born American of British noble descent who goes to England and returns a British soldier, and is forced to deal with the split loyalties in his family and friends to the American colonies and the British homeland. At the end of the novel, he returns to England with his wife Cecil, another American born cousin.
The novel was originally conceived as part of a 13 volume series of historical novels by Cooper; however, he was generally dissatisfied with his work as a historical novelist. Both contemporary and modern critics regard the novel as one of the poorest novels written by Cooper.
After the success of The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground , The Pioneers , and The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea , Cooper intended to try his hand at historical fiction with a series of 13 novels called Legends of the Thirteen Republics, wishing to reflect on the role of each colony in the revolution in each novel. However, Lionel Lincoln was the first and last of the novels to be written and published. Generally, Cooper was disappointed with the reception of his novel by the American audience and dissatisfied with his first attempt at historical fiction. [1]
This article needs a plot summary.(February 2014) |
Both Lionel Lincoln and his eventual American bride, Cecil, come from British Aristocratic families. For the American audience and for Cooper, such nobility represented the corrupt and promiscuous British nobility. Though the novel was supposed to be about American republicanism and the praising the American revolution, the titular character Lincoln and his wife return to Britain at the end of the war. [2] One major theme is whether Lincoln will in fact be moved to join the American cause. Throughout the novel, he is repeatedly given arguments of reason to favour the American cause over the British. But as critic Donald Donnell points out, the obstinate loyalty to the King which results in Lincoln's return to England at the end of the war, seems to be a deliberately negative trait with which Cooper endows many of Loyalist characters. [3] In his dissertation, Paul Jonathan Woolf examines the effect the decision for these aristocratic characters to leave the United States at the end of the novel:
Arguably, though, Cooper wrote himself into a corner. To keep Lionel and Cecil in America would have had disturbing implications. If Lionel and Cecil, whose own branch of the Lincoln family is tainted by her grandmother’s diabolical scheming, remained in America, the new nation would not be rid of what Cooper depicts as the endemic insanity, sexual deviancy and deceit of the English aristocracy. Furthermore, to invest in Lionel and Cecil the leadership of the new republic would raise some unsettling political questions... for Cecil and Lionel to become leaders in the United States would surely risk blurring the line between natural and titled aristocracy; they would here be one and the same. [4]
Joseph Steinbrink called Lionel Lincoln Cooper's "first and ultimately his only strict attempt at historical fiction". According to Steinbrink, Cooper was one of the few early American authors who appreciated the early history of the United States, and saw that the American Revolution was really the gem which Americans could enjoy, if there were to be historical novels. However, the generally poor reception of the novel by contemporaries led to Cooper being dissatisfied with the genre of historical fiction, believing that the American literary audience was not yet ready to explore the Historical fiction genre. According to Steinbrink, however, the novel's failure resulted from Cooper's inability to integrate character and plot development into the history of the American Revolution. [1]
Scholar W.B. Gates strongly links the plot of Lionel Lincoln to that "King Lear," emphasizing the similarity between Lionel Lincoln's plot and that surrounding the Duke Gloucester. He compares the plot of the two:
Both Lionel Lincoln and the Gloucester plot involve a distinguished gentleman who has an illegitimate son; in the play the son (Edmund) proves to be a villain; in the novel the son (Job Pray) proves to be a half-witted creature who embodies many of the traits of Lear's Fool. Similarly to the Fool, he attaches himself to a man whom he likes but whom he chides unmercifully (Major Lincoln, his half-brother). In each story, the distinguished gentleman later has a legitimate son of noble character whom circumstances place in opposition to his father. In the play, Edgar is wrongly accused of plotting against his father and is forced to flee; in the novel, Major Lincoln is a British officer, whereas his father is an ardent (though mad) supporter of the colonists. [5]
Contemporary critics of Cooper had a decidedly negative reception of Lionel Lincoln. [1] Critic John Neal was very disappointed, writing in American Writers : "It is not such a book, as we might have, and shall have, we do hope yet; a brave, hearty, original book, brimful of descriptive truth-of historical and familiar truth; crowded with real American character; alive with American peculiarities; got up after no model, however excellent; wove [sic] to no pattern, however beautiful; in imitation of nobody, however great." To Neal, Lionel Lincoln was an unrealistic imitation of the Scottish historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, and was completely unsatisfactory. [6]
Modern critic Joseph Steinbrink points out that the historical retelling of battles and events by Cooper is very good, but that this is obscured by both a very weak character of Lionel Lincoln and too much "gothicism and sentimentality". Steinbrink suggests that Cooper may have concentrated too hard on researching the historical information, rendering the art of storytelling unduly hard, because the knowledge of the American Revolution didn't come naturally to him. [1]
James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. He lived much of his boyhood and his last fifteen years in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society.
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The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is an 1823 historical novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. It was the first of five novels published which became known as the Leatherstocking Tales. The Pioneers is the fourth novel in terms of the chronology of the novels' plots.
The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1823. Its subject is the life of a naval pilot during the American Revolution. It is often considered the earliest example of nautical fiction in American literature. It is one of Cooper's most renowned works and is considered a classic of adventure literature. The novel follows the thrilling adventures of a mysterious and daring seafarer known as "The Pilot."
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The Spy: a Tale of the Neutral Ground is a novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. His second novel, it was published in 1821 by Wiley & Halsted. The plot is set during the American Revolution and was inspired in part by the family friend John Jay. The Spy was successful and began Cooper's reputation as a popular and important American writer.
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Mercedes of Castile; or, The Voyage to Cathay is an 1840 historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper. The novel is set in 15th-century Europe, and follows the preparations and expedition of Christopher Columbus westward to the new world.
The Monikins is an 1835 novel, written by James Fenimore Cooper. The novel, a beast fable, was written between his composition of two of his more famous novels from the Leatherstocking Tales, The Prairie and The Pathfinder. The critic Christina Starobin compares the novel's plot to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. The novel is a satire, narrated by the main character, the English Sir John Goldencalf. Goldencalf and the American captain Noah Poke travel on a series of humorous adventures to an Antarctic archipelago inhabited by a race of civilized monkeys.
The Two Admirals is an 1842 nautical fiction novel by American author James Fenimore Cooper. The novel was written after the Leatherstocking Tales novel The Deerslayer. Set during the 18th century and exploring the British Royal Navy, Cooper wrote the novel out of encouragement of his English publisher, who recommended writing another sea novel. Cooper had originally intended to write a novel where ships were the main characters, though eventually decided not to. The novel is one of three novels which Cooper would revise for editions following their first printing, the other two being The Pathfinder and Deerslayer.
Wyandotté is a historical novel published by James Fenimore Cooper in 1843. The novel is set in New York state during the American Revolution. The main character of the novel is an Indian, "Saucy Nick", also called Wyandotté, whose depictions violate stereotypes of Native Americans.
The Oak Openings; or, The Bee Hunter is an 1848 novel by James Fenimore Cooper. The novel focuses on the activities of professional honey-hunter Benjamin Boden, nicknamed "Ben Buzz". The novel is set in Kalamazoo, Michigan's Oak Opening, a wooded prairie that still exists in part today, during the War of 1812.
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Seventy-Six is a historical fiction novel by American writer John Neal. Published in Baltimore in 1823, it is the fourth novel written about the American Revolutionary War. Historically distinguished for its pioneering use of colloquial language, Yankee dialect, battle scene realism, high characterization, stream of consciousness narrative, profanity, and depictions of sex and romance, the novel foreshadowed and influenced later American writers. The narrative prose resembles spoken American English more than any other literature of its period. It was the first work of American fiction to use the phrase son-of-a-bitch.