The Last of the Mohicans (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Cooper, James Fenimore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853260495 ISBN 13: 9781853260490

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1992

Synopsis

Introduction and Notes by David Blair. University of Kent at Canterbury.

It is 1757. Across north-eastern America the armies of Britain and France struggle for ascendancy. Their conflict, however, overlays older struggles between nations of native Americans for possession of the same lands and between the native peoples and white colonisers. Through these layers of conflict Cooper threads a thrilling narrative, in which Cora and Alice Munro, daughters of a British commander on the front line of the colonial war, attempt to join their father. Thwarted by Magua, the sinister 'Indian runner', they find help in the person of Hawkeye, the white woodsman, and his companions, the Mohican Chingachgook and Uncas, his son, the last of his tribe.

Cooper's novel is full of vivid incident- pursuits through wild terrain, skirmishes, treachery and brutality- but reflects also on the interaction between the colonists and the native peoples. Through the character of Hawkeye, Cooper raises lasting questions about the practises of the American frontier and the eclipse of the indigenous cultures.

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 was the great professional American author. He was born on September 15, 1789, in Burlington, New Jersey, and grew up in the frontier village of Cooperstown, New York, in the heart of the wilderness he was to immortalize in his frontier novels. A high-spirited youth, he was expelled from Yale because of a prank and was finally signed by the navy by his strong-willed father. In 1819 a trifling incident reportedly led to the writing of his first book. Reading aloud to his wife from a popular English novel, he exclaimed, I could write you a better book myself! The result was Precausion (1820), which followed in 1821 by his first real success, The Spy. Cooper became a prolific writer, creating two unique genres that were to become staples in American literature the sea romance and the frontier adventure story. The first of the famous Leatherstocking tales, The Pioneers, appeared in 1823 and introduced the wilderness scout Natty Bumppo. This detailed portrait of frontier life has been called the first truly American novel. In The Last of the Mohicans (1826) Natty Bumppo becomes the well-loved Hawkeye befriended by the noble Indian Chingachgook; the novel remains a favorite American classic. Other Leatherstocking tales were The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840) influenced both Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad and led to the use of the sea novel as vehicle for spiritual and moral explorations. Cooper also wrote political satire, romance, and the meticulously researched History of the Navy of the United States of America (1839). By the time of his death on September 14, 1851, he was considered America's national novelist.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 1853260495
• ISBN 13: 9781853260490
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 384