Other editions of book The Deerslayer

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal"

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. He lived most of his life in Cooperstown, New York, which was established by his father William. Cooper was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and in his later years contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society, but was expelled for misbehavior. Before embarking on his career as a writer he served in the U.S. Navy as a Midshipman which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among naval historians Cooper's works on the early U.S. Navy have been well received, but they were sometimes criticized by his contemporaries. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.

On his first "warpath" in New York's Lake Otsego during the French and Indian Wars, the courageous Natty Bumppo—one of American literature's noblest heroes—is honor-bound to rescue a trapper and his family attacked by Iroquois Indians. Accompanied by his loyal Mohican friend, Chingachgook, the great frontiersman becomes embroiled in a bloody battle of capture and escape.Originally published in 1841, The Deerslayer is one of James Fenimore Cooper's legendary "Leatherstocking Tales"—heart-pounding narratives of adventure in the vast wilderness and desolate prairies of eighteenth-century America. Acclaimed by D. H. Lawrence as "the loveliest and best" of Cooper's works, The Deerslayer recaptures the danger and excitement of frontier life in the New World.