A definitive new biography of James Fenimore Cooper, early nineteenth-century master of American popular fiction "It will be the definitive biography and foremost study of Cooper's fiction and nonfiction for the foreseeable future."- Allan Axelrad, California State University, Fullerton American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) has been credited with inventing and popularizing a wide variety of genre fiction, including the Western, the spy novel, the high seas adventure tale, and the Revolutionary War romance. America's first crusading novelist, Cooper reminds us that literature is not a cloistered art; rather, it ought to be intimately engaged with the world. In this second volume of his definitive biography, Wayne Franklin concentrates on the latter half of Cooper's life, detailing a period of personal and political controversy, far-ranging international travel, and prolific literary creation. We hear of Cooper's progressive views on race and slavery, his doubts about American expansionism, and his concern about the future prospects of the American Republic, while observing how his groundbreaking career management paved the way for later novelists to make a living through their writing. Franklin offers readers the most comprehensive portrait to date of this underappreciated American literary icon.

This Norton Critical Edition seeks to give readers a full understanding of Thomas Jefferson's importance to the intellectual development of the United States, particularly in political theory and scientific learning; of Jefferson's role in the expansion of the territory and sovereignty of the United States; and of Jefferson's controversial relation to slavery and race as key issues in American history. The editor has selected Jefferson's most important published texts-A Summary View of the Rights of British America, the Declaration of Independence, and Notes on the State of Virginia-along with An Appendix to the Notes on Virginia Relative to the Murder of Logan's Family and his Message to Congress on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In addition, more than one hundred of Jefferson's letters (1760-1826) have been judiciously selected from his rich body of correspondence, allowing readers to see Jefferson as a person as well as a public figure. All texts are accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations. "Contexts" reprints contemporary documents that place Jefferson and his writings within the early American Republic, including works by Thomas Paine, John Adams, Francois-Jean de Beauvoir, and Luther Martin. Also included are diverse and early responses to Jefferson and his writings by, among others, John Quincy Adams, William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. "Criticism" provides representative works of modern interpretation and analysis that confirm Jefferson's continuing relevance. Included are twelve thought-provoking assessments from several disciplinary perspectives by, among others, Annette Gordon Reed, Peter Onuf, and Douglas L. Wilson. A Selected Bibliography is also included.

Bill Durmer is in over his head. In Midlife Mouse, the debut novel from filmmaker Wayne Franklin, Durmer, an underachieving genius, runs away to Walt Disney World in the mother of all midlife crises. Led by a series of bizarre encounters, a hyper-caffeinated delusion and a mysterious prophecy, Bill goes to the Magic Kingdom seeking his destiny. But a group of Disney haters will do almost anything to stop him. Pirates and princesses, morticians, moms and man-beasts, spacemen and psychos all have a stake in Bill's future ... and those are the good guys. This is not how he planned to spend his summer vacation.