Books with author James Fenimore Cooper

Leatherstocking Tales #2 The Last of the Mohicans is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in January 1826. It was one of the most popular English-language novels of its time. Its narrative flaws were criticized from the start, and its length and elaborately formal prose style have reduced its appeal to later readers. Regardless, The Last of the Mohicans is widely read in American literature courses. This second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy is the best known. The Pathfinder, written 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel. Cooper named a principal character Uncas after the most famous of the Mohicans. The real Mohicans lived in the colony of Connecticut in the mid-seventeenth century, and not in the New York frontier a century later. Uncas was a Mohegan, not a Mohican, and Cooper's usage has helped to confuse the names of two tribes to the present day. When John Uncas, his last surviving male descendant died in 1842, the Newark Daily Advertiser wrote "Last of the Mohegans Gone" lamenting the extinction of the tribe. The writer was not aware that Mohegans still existed then and to the present day. The story takes place in 1757 during the Seven Years' War (known in America as the French and Indian War), when France and the United Kingdom battled for control of the American and Canadian colonies. During this war, the French often allied themselves with Native American tribes in order to gain an advantage over the British, with unpredictable and often tragic results.

THE COMPLETE LEATHERSTOCKING TALES features the five novels of James Fenimore Cooper's beloved Leatherstocking series, which follow the adventures of Natty Bumppo. Set largely on the frontier of New York during the 18th century, Bumppo, who is known as "Leatherstocking" to the European settlers and "Deerslayer" or "Hawkeye" to the Native Americans, is an Anglo-American raised in part by Delaware Indians. Together with his brother and companion Chingachgook, they roam the frontier through a variety of harrowing adventures.• The Deerslayer• The Last of the Mohicans• The Pathfinder• The Pioneers• The Prairie James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was a highly prolific and popular American writer of the first part of the 19th century. Born in New Jersey, Cooper lived most of his life in Cooperstown, a community founded by and named after his father, in a newly-settled region of New York. James Fenimore Cooper became a sailor at the age of 17, voyaging to Europe and witnessing British impressment of American sailors. He later joined the U.S. Navy and served in the War of 1812. After leaving the Navy, Cooper began writing in 1820, eventually publishing more than 30 novels, as well as short stories, drama, and non-fiction during the next three decades.

In American literature, James Fenimore Cooper is a name that Americans have heard of but can’t always place, when compared to the works of individuals like Edgar Allan Poe and Emerson and Thoreau. But every American comes across his work, and today he is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Perhaps his most famous work is The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece and well known as a movie title. Cooper's best known historical novels talked about life on the American frontier, but The Spy was a bit of a different kind of historical novel. In this thriller, Cooper tells a tale of a spy during the American Revolution, and his encounters with famous figures.

The deadly crack of a long rifle and the piercing cries of Indians on the warpath shatter the serenity of beautiful Lake Glimmerglass. Danger has invaded the vast forests of upper New York State as Deerslayer and his loyal Mohican friend Chingachgook attempt the daring rescue of an Indian maiden imprisoned in a Huron camp. Soon they are caught in the cross fire between a cunning enemy and two white bounty hunters who mercilessly kill for profit.The last of the Leatherstocking Tales to be written, though first in the chronology of the hero’s life, The Deerslayer is James Fenimore Cooper’s masterpiece. A fine combination of romance, adventure, and morality, this classic novel of the frontier is an eloquent beginning for Cooper’s great wildernes saga—and an unforgettable introduction to the famous character who has been said to embody the conscience of America: the noble woodsman Deerslayer.

With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, M.A., Ph.D., Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. The Deerslayer is the culmination of James Fenimore Cooper s Leather-Stocking novels, featuring Natty Bumppo (the deer-slaying young frontiersman) and the Mohican chief, Chingachgook. Cooper portrays the hubris of the conquest of a vast territory. The action takes place during the American wars of the 1740s. Natty and his friend Harry attempt to save a trapper and two young women, whose floating fort on Lake Glimmerglass is besieged by the ruthless Iroquois. The tension steadily increases to the point at which a cruel outcome seems inevitable. The exciting action, the romantic potentialities and the knowledgeable evocation of frontier life (with its moral and racial conflicts) have made this novel a perennial favourite. The courageous Natty, with his problematic values, has set the precedent for countless American heroes. Culturally, The Deerslayer has proved to be a powerfully influential work.

The Last of the Mohican by James Fenimore Cooper, 1826.The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical novel written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826.It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. The Pathfinder, published 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War (the North American theater of the Seven Years' War), when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. During this war, both the French and the British used Native American allies, but the French were particularly dependent, as they were outnumbered in the Northeast frontier areas by British colonists.The novel is set primarily in Lake George, New York, detailing the transport of the two daughters of Colonel Munro, Alice and Cora, to a safe destination at Fort William Henry. Among the caravan guarding the women are the frontiersman Natty Bumppo, Major Duncan Heyward, and the Indians Chingachgook and Uncas, the latter two being the novel's title characters. These characters are sometimes seen as a microcosm of the budding American society, particularly with regard to their racial composition.The novel has been one of the most popular English-language novels since its publication and is frequently assigned reading in American literature courses.[4] It has been adapted numerous times and in many languages for films, TV movies, and cartoons.

Cooper's most famous novel, "The Last of the Mohicans" features a main character who recurs in five of his novels, Natty Bumppo, who is also known as Hawkeye. The five novels about Hawkeye's adventures in the wilderness of New York are collectively known as the "Leatherstocking Tales".In "The Last of the Mohicans", Hawkeye is now in middle life and at the height of his powers. The story tells of brutal battles with the Iroquois and their French allies, cruel captures, narrow escapes, and revenge. The beauty of the unspoiled wilderness and sorrow at its disappearance, symbolized in Hawkeye’s Mohican friends, the last of their tribe, are important themes of the novel.James Fenimore Cooper was one of the most popular early American novelists. He was known for writing adventure novels. He was born in New Jersey in 1789 and raised on the New York frontier, where he set most of his stories.One day, Cooper was reading a popular novel out loud to his wife when he became angry at what he saw as its bad storytelling. He tossed the book aside and said to her, 'I could write you a better novel!' Thus began one of the most successful careers of that era. In fact, throughout most of his career, he was one of the most popular writers in the English language.

The incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745, when the settled portions of the colony of New York were confined to the four Atlantic counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the Hudson, extending from its mouth to the falls near its head, and to a few advanced “neighborhoods” on the Mohawk and the Schoharie. Broad belts of the virgin wilderness not only reached the shores of the first river, but they even crossed it, stretching away into New England, and affording forest covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior, as he trod the secret and bloody war-path. A bird's-eye view of the whole region east of the Mississippi must then have offered one vast expanse of woods, relieved by a comparatively narrow fringe of cultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces of lakes, and intersected by the waving lines of river. In such a vast picture of solemn solitude, the district of country we design to paint sinks into insignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction that, with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving an accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily convey a tolerably correct notion of the whole. Whatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the seasons is unbroken. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return in their stated order with a sublime precision, affording to man one of the noblest of all the occasions he enjoys of proving the high powers of his far-reaching mind, in compassing the laws that control their exact uniformity, and in calculating their never-ending revolutions.Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and pines, sending their heats even to the tenacious roots, when voices were heard calling to each other, in the depths of a forest, of which the leafy surface lay bathed in the brilliant light of a cloudless day in June, while the trunks of the trees rose in gloomy grandeur in the shades beneath. The calls were in different tones, evidently proceeding from two men who had lost their way, and were searching in different directions for their path. At length a shout proclaimed success, and presently a man of gigantic mould broke out of the tangled labyrinth of a small swamp, emerging into an opening that appeared to have been formed partly by the ravages of the wind, and partly by those of fire. This little area, which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was pretty well filled with dead trees, lay on the side of one of the high hills, or low mountains, into which nearly the whole surface of the adjacent country was broken.“Here is room to breathe in!” exclaimed the liberated forester, as soon as he found himself under a clear sky, shaking his huge frame like a mastiff that has just escaped from a snowbank. “Hurrah! Deerslayer; here is daylight, at last, and yonder is the lake.”- Taken from "The Deerslayer" written by James Fenimore Cooper