The Deerslayer

At Lake Otsego, during the French and Indian Wars, great frontiersman Natty Bumppo forsakes his love to come to the aid of Thomas Hutter, a trapper under the attack of Iroquois Indians. Published in 1841, The Deerslayer is the first of the "Leatherstocking" tales, which reveal the courageous and perseverant nature of the pioneer. Recognized for his descriptive power, Cooper created in Natty Bumppo a mythical character-one of the most significant in the history of American literature. The text of this book was approved by the Center for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and published in hardcover by the State University of New York Press. Book jacket.

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.