A Narrative of 1757 (Signet classics) - Softcover

Cooper, James Fenimore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451514955 ISBN 13: 9780451514950

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia, 1987

Synopsis

EXCEPTIONAL UNABRIDGED EDITION

Read one of the greatest masterpieces of all time in a beautiful edition.

The Last of the Mohicans is an outstanding work, referred to as "Great American Novel". It presents a moving portrayal of a race on the brink of disappearance and the end of its way of life in the idyllic American wilderness. First published in 1826, the plot is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War, when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America.

Deep in the forests of upper New York State, as the war rages, the two daughters of a British officer prepare to return home. But when, Cora, Alice and their escorts are betrayed by their scout, the renegade and vengeful Huron Chief Magua, their safety depends on the brave frontiersman Natty Bumppo and his loyal and wise friends Chingachkook and Uncas - the last of the Mohicans.

This tale of survival and courage will touch readers of every age with both its timeless realization of an important historical period, and with its powerful action and exciting adventure.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 – 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer. Before embarking on his career as a writer, he served in the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, which greatly influenced many of his writings based on sea stories or counterespionage. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. The Last of the Mohicans is his most popular work, one of the most widely read novels throughout the world, and it has deeply influenced popular opinion about American Indians. James Fenimore Cooper is today considered the first great American novelist.

Find the other "Great American Novels" in a beautiful book series by the editor Atlantic Editions :
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

About this title

Review

"[Cooper's] sympathy is large, and his humor is as genuine -- and as perfectly unaffected -- as his art."
- Joseph Conrad

About the Author

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451514955
• ISBN 13: 9780451514950
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback