The Last of the Mohicans Lea, of Philadelphia. According to Susan 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, but reviewers were often critical, or dismissive. For example, the reviewer of the "London Magazine" (May 1826) described the novel as "clearly by much the worst of Mr Cooper's performances." Mark Twain notably derided the author in his essay "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", published in "North American Review" (July 1895). Twain complained that Cooper lacked a variety of style and was overly wordy. In the
The Last of the Mohicans of the fight between Magua and Chingachgook (12th chapter), to his wife, who thought that he was delirious. In the novel, Hawkeye refers to Lake George as the "Horican". Cooper felt that Lake George was too plain, while the French name, "Le Lac du St. Sacrement", was "too complicated". Horican he found on an old map of the area; it was a French transliteration of a native group who had once lived in the area. Cooper grew up in Cooperstown, New York, the frontier town founded by his father. His daughter said that as a young man he had few