Books with title Oh Pioneers!

First published in 1823, “The Pioneers” was the debut novel in James Fenimore Cooper’s famous “Leatherstocking Tales”. While published first, it is the fourth chronologically of Cooper’s five “Leatherstocking Tales” and follows the later life of his central character, Natty Bumppo. Well-known to Cooper’s readers as the archetypal American frontiersman and friend to Indians, Natty struggles with hunting and maintaining his way of life amid a growing economy and the new societal laws that restrict the freedom of the wilderness he has always known. He finds allies of his rebellion in a local landowner’s daughter and a mysterious young visitor in this rich and fascinating depiction of early frontier life and the essential American character that clashes with the expanding nature of society. Natty is the wise and pragmatic voice of reason in the novel, a man who understands that the settlers must respect the land they now find themselves the stewards of if they want to continue to enjoy its beauty and resources. “The Pioneers” is both a rich social drama, as well as a political and ecological novel, that helped established Cooper as one of the first great American novelists. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

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.

First published in 1913, O Pioneers! was hailed as by the critics as "a totally new kind of story," with characters "new in American fiction" and a heroine who was "a new and interesting type." Cather's heroine, Alexandra Bergson, would, in fact, become the model for the pioneer women of later literature. Spirited, courageous, and independent, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, Alexandra assumes responsibility for the family farm—and her family—upon death of her father. Her devotion to the harsh, forbidding prairie transforms her land and her life.

The first of the five Leatherstocking Tales, The Pioneers is perhaps the most realistic and beautiful of the series. Drawing on his own experiences, Cooper brilliantly describes Frontier life, providing a fascinating backdrop to the real heart of the novel--the competing claims to land ownership of Native Americans and settlers. This edition follows the publication of The Last of the Mohicans in the World's Classics series and uses the standard text approved by the Modern Language Association.

“One of the century’s greatest American writers.” -The Observer A Pulitzer Prize–winning novel celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2013, this is a tale of people struggling to carve out a life in the wilderness while battling ever-duplicitous human nature. O Pioneers!, Willa Cather's first great novel, is the classic American story of pioneer life as embodied by one remarkable woman and her singular devotion to the land. Alexandra Bergson's father, John, is dying. He entrusts his farmstead on a desolate stretch of plain to her, rather than to her brothers. Faced with the rigors of frontier living, droughts, and penury, Alexandra only becomes more determined to carry on her father's legacy and battles through remortgaging the farm and adopting new techniques. In this unforgettable story, Cather conveys both the physical realities of the landscape, as well as the mythic sweep of the transformation of the frontier, more faithfully and perhaps more fully than any other work of fiction. Written in 1913, O Pioneers! was the first in Cather's "Great Plains" trilogy, and it was followed by The Song of the Lark and My Antonia.

In this classic novel, James Fenimore Cooper portrays life in a new settlement on New York's Lake Otsego in the closing years of the eighteenth century. He describes the year's cycle: the turkey shoot at Christmas, the tapping of maple trees, fishing for bass in the evening, the marshalling of the militia. But Cooper is also concerned with exploring the development of the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the American experience. He writes of the conflicts within the settlement itself, focusing primarily on the contrast between the natural codes of the hunter and woodsman Natty Bumppo and his Indian friend John Mohegan and the more rigid structure of law needed by a more complex society. Quite possibly America's first best-seller (more than three thousand copies were sold within hours of publication), The Pioneers today evokes a vibrant and authentic picture of the American pioneering experience.

The Pioneers: The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is a historical novel, the first published of the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. While The Pioneers was published in 1823, before any of the other Leatherstocking Tales, the period of time it covers makes it the fourth chronologically.The story takes place on the rapidly advancing frontier of New York State and features a middle-aged Leatherstocking (Natty Bumppo), Judge Marmaduke Temple of Templeton, whose life parallels that of the author's father Judge William Cooper, and Elizabeth Temple (the author's sister Susan Cooper), of Cooperstown. The story begins with an argument between the Judge and the Leatherstocking over who killed a buck, and as Cooper reviews many of the changes to New York's Lake Otsego, questions of environmental stewardship, conservation, and use prevail. The plot develops as the Leatherstocking and Chingachgook begin to compete with the Temples for the loyalties of a mysterious young visitor, "Oliver Edwards," the "young hunter," who eventually marries Elizabeth. Chingachgook dies, exemplifying the vexed figure of the "dying Indian," and Natty vanishes into the sunset. For all its strange twists and turns, 'The Pioneers' may be considered one of the first ecological novels in the United States.

The Pioneers: The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is a historical novel, the first published of the Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. While The Pioneers was published in 1823, before any of the other Leatherstocking Tales, the period of time it covers makes it the fourth chronologically.The story takes place on the rapidly advancing frontier of New York State and features a middle-aged Leatherstocking (Natty Bumppo), Judge Marmaduke Temple of Templeton, whose life parallels that of the author's father Judge William Cooper, and Elizabeth Temple (the author's sister Susan Cooper), of Cooperstown. The story begins with an argument between the Judge and the Leatherstocking over who killed a buck, and as Cooper reviews many of the changes to New York's Lake Otsego, questions of environmental stewardship, conservation, and use prevail. The plot develops as the Leatherstocking and Chingachgook begin to compete with the Temples for the loyalties of a mysterious young visitor, "Oliver Edwards," the "young hunter," who eventually marries Elizabeth. Chingachgook dies, exemplifying the vexed figure of the "dying Indian," and Natty vanishes into the sunset. For all its strange twists and turns, 'The Pioneers' may be considered one of the first ecological novels in the United States.