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Some cynic has said that a classic literature book is "a book people praise but seldom read." Unfortunately, that has more truth to it than I would like. But for me, I have found that most classic novels became “classic” for a reason – they are fascinating novels. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Baroness Orczy, Captain Marryat, and many other authors have beguiled away hours for me while at the same time I was learning about people and places that come into the various stories and learning to think about life. Another such author is James Fenimore Cooper, probably the first American writer to achieve popularity at home and abroad. Modern critics have not always treated him well but let me assure you, his books are worth reading. All his books have a strong Christian worldview and a few even deal with issues of salvation, which may be why many modern critics do not like them!
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) became famous and wealthy through his many published books. He was the king of American literature, at least to the rest of the world, for decades. He lived for much of his life in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father, hence the name. We know of Cooperstown today because that is where the National Baseball Hall of Fame is located. Cooper served in the US Navy, giving him the background for his many stories that were set at sea. In 1820 he published his first novel, after complaining to his wife that even he could write a better book than the book he was currently reading. His wife, Susan, challenged him to try and he published his first book, Precaution, with modest success. His second book, The Spy, really launched his career and was based on events during the Revolution in New York, with George Washington as a spymaster major character.
Cooper is remembered today, in the United States and in Europe, mainly for his five Leatherstocking Tales, which form a loosely-connected series (see my review). This present review is about The Crater, one of his last books.
Backtracking a bit: I have never understood the popularity of the “Survivor” reality TV show series, which itself is based on a 1997 Swedish TV series called “Expedition Robinson.” The name of the original Swedish show was obviously taken from the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, written around 1700. I have never had any interest in watching these shows but I do enjoy stories of survival by castaways on deserted islands that also contain the theme of building a civilization. James Fenimore Cooper’s The Crater is a good example of this kind of literature, called a robinsonade. However, it is a bit different from novels of this type, most of which deal with the survival of individuals, like Robinson Crusoe, or a single family or small group, such as Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss or The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. The Crater describes the survival of two Americans, shipwrecked on a group of volcanic islands, who then gather a larger group of Americans, who not only survive but build a community and government on this same group of volcanic islands.
The Crater was published in 1847, four years before his death, and shows Cooper at the height of his inventive powers. The first part of The Crater deals with the survival of Mark Woolston and his friend Bob, cast away on a desert island. There are parallels, probably intentional, to Robinson Crusoe, especially in the spiritual implications of this isolation. The technical details of how the castaways survive and thrive are fascinating and show that Cooper, besides being a writer, had a good working knowledge of many of the technical accomplishments of mid-19th century science and technology. In the second part of the book, Mark and Bob are joined by Mark’s wife and many other families, who together form a government and a new society. In this part of the book, still full of adventure and interesting actions, Cooper uses the growth, and decline, of this new society to comment on the 1847 United States and the problems it was showing, after sixty years of self-government, in politics, religion, and culture. Some of that analysis, brought forth through the plot and characters of The Crater, still apply to us today. I think if Cooper was still around, he would not be very happy with the 2026 United States.
I will leave you with a last statement: James Fenimore Cooper, and other classic literature authors, can be fun to read! It might take a little more mental effort than the latest modern novel (e.g. James Patterson pablum), but once you get going, you will find yourself gripped by the story and the characters and enriched by the reading experience. The Crater and other of Cooper’s books are probably best read by high school students.