Synopses & Reviews
A restless white youth raised by Indians, Natty Bumppo is called Deerslayer for the daring that sets him apart from his peers. But he has yet to meet the test of human conflict. In a tale of violent action and superbly sustained suspense, the harsh realities of tribal warfare force him to kill his first foe, then face torture at the stake. Still yet another kind of initiation awaits him when he discovers not only the ruthlessness of “civilized” men, but also the special danger of a woman’s will. His reckless spirit transformed into mature courage and moral certainty, the Deerslayer emerges to face life with nobility as pure and proud as the wilderness whose fierce beauty and freedom have claimed his heart.
With an introduction by Robert Tilton
Review
“Cooper emphatically belongs to the nation. He has left a space in our literature which will not easily be supplied.”—Washington Irving
“His memory will exist in the hearts of the people...[and his works] should find a place in every American’s library.”—Daniel Webster
Review
“In his immortal friendship of Chingachgook and Natty Bumppo [Cooper] dreamed the nucleus of a new society….A stark human relationship of two men, deeper than the deeps of sex. Deeper than property, deeper than fatherhood, deeper than marriage, deeper than Love.” -D. H. Lawrence
“The Last of the Mohicans raises again the question of the efficacy of human effort to control irrational forces at work in individual men, races, and nations. The question has never been more pertinent than now.” -James Franklin Beard
Synopsis
- The final volume in Cooper's Leatherstocking saga--now in a beautiful new edition
- With a new introduction by Robert Tilton
Synopsis
Set during the French and Indian Wars, The Deerslayer vividly captures the essence of both the murderous humanity and the natural beauty that distinguished America's founding. The last of Cooper's famous Leatherstocking Tales, it is first chronologically in the frontier adventures of the backwoods scout Natty Bumppo. Amid a terrain largely inspired by Cooper's own boyhood, Natty's initiation in the moral codes of wilderness society is examined in what is, according to D. H. Lawrence, "the loveliest and best" of the Leatherstocking series.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the definitive text established by James Franklin Beard and James P. Elliott, which is the Approved Text of the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association.
Synopsis
In this final volume in the Leatherstocking saga, the Indian-raised Deerslayer has become a man of courage and moral certainty-and he emerges from tribal warfare with nobility as pure and proud as the wilderness whose fierce beauty and freedom have claimed his heart.
Synopsis
The Last of the Mohicans, one of the worlds great adventure stories, dramatizes how the birth of American culture was intertwined with that of Native Americans. In 1757, as the English and the French war over American territory, the frontier scout HawkeyeNatty Bumpporisks his life to escort two sisters through hostile Huron country. Hawkeye enlists the aid of his Mohican friends Chingachgook and Uncas, and together they battle deception, brutality, and death in a thrilling story of loyalty, moral courage, and love.
With an Introduction by Richard Hutson
and a New Afterword by Hugh C. MacDougall
Synopsis
Vigorous, self-reliant, amazingly resourceful, and moral, Natty Bumppo is the prototype of the Western hero. A faultless arbiter of wilderness justice, he hates middle-class hypocrisy. But he finds his love divided between the woman he has pledged to protect on a treacherous journey and the untouched forest that sustains him in his beliefs. A fast-paced narrative full of adventure and majestic descriptions of early frontier life, Indian raiders, and defenseless outposts, The Pathfinder set the standard for epic action literature.
About the Author
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) grew up at Otsego Hall, his father’s manorial estate near Lake Otsego in upstate New York. Educated at Yale, he spent five years at sea, as a foremast hand and then as a midshipman in the navy. At thirty he was suddenly plunged into a literary career when his wife challenged his claim that he could write a better book that the English novel he was reading to her. The result was Precaution (1820), a novel of manners. His second book, The Spy (1821), was an immediate success, and with The Pioneers (1823) he began his series of Leatherstocking Tales. By 1826 when The Last of the Mohicans appeared, his standing as a major novelist was clearly established. From 1826 to 1833 Cooper and his family lived and traveled in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. Two of his most successful works, The Prairie and The Red Rover, were published in 1827. He returned to Otsego Hall in 1834, and after a series of relatively unsuccessful books of essays, travel sketches, and history, he returned to fiction – and to Leatherstocking – with The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). In his last decade he faced declining popularity brought on in part by his waspish attacks on critics and political opponents. Just before his death in 1851 an edition of his works led to a reappraisal of his fiction and somewhat restored his reputation as the first of American writers.