Synopses & Reviews
The second and most popular chronicle in his Leatherstocking Tales, James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans is one of the greatest historical romances to come out of America. Set in 1757 amidst the French and Indian War, the novel tells the story of frontier scout Hawkeye and his efforts to conduct two daughters of a fort commander to safety. Filled with Fenimore Cooper's lush descriptions of unsoiled wilderness, Native-American lore, death-defying chases, and teeth-clenching suspense, this American classic established many archetypes of American frontier fiction. An engrossing Western by America's first great novelist, The Last of the Mohicans is a story of survival and treachery, love and deliverance.
Review
Praise for James Fenimore Cooper:
“His memory will exist in the hearts of the people... [and his works] should find a place in every American’s library.”—Daniel Webster
“Cooper emphatically belongs to the nation. He has left a space in our literature which will not easily be supplied.”—Washington Irving
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 classic tale of Hawkeye—Natty Bumppo—the frontier scout who turned his back on "civilization," and his friendship with a Mohican warrior as they escort two sisters through the dangerous wilderness of Indian country in frontier America.
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
About the Author
James Fenimore Cooper (17891851) was born in Burlington, New Jersey, and his family moved to Cooperstown, New York, while he was still an infant. He attended Yale College until he was expelled for bad behavior. He served in the U.S. Navy, resigning in 1811 to get married. With his story
The Pilot (1823), Cooper set the style for a new genre of sea fiction. His most famous novels are the Leather-Stocking Tales (
The Pioneers, 1823;
The Last of the Mohicans, 1826;
The Prairie, 1827;
The Pathfinder, 1840; and
The Deerslayer, 1841), featuring the quintessential American hero Natty Bumppo. Cooper, a keen social critic, wrote several well-regarded naval histories.
Richard Hutson is an associate professor of English and director of the American Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. His teaching and writing have been primarily on American popular culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially on the American West.
Hugh C. MacDougall, a graduate of Harvard, Columbia Law School and Columbia School of International Affairs, served in the State Department for twenty-eight years, including postings in tropical Africa, Brazil, and Burma. He is a founder of the James Fenimore Cooper Society, and has presented many papers on Cooper and his writings.