Books : James Fenimore Cooper : The Leatherstocking Tales I: The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie (Library of America)
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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.2
EAN num: 9780940450202
ISBN number: 0940450208
Label: Library of America
Manufacturer: Library of America
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 1347
Printing Date: July 01, 1985
Publishing house: Library of America
Sale Popularity Level: 266249
Studio: Library of America
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Rated by buyers -
Omnibus volume 1 of 2 in the Library of America edition of the "Leatherstocking tales"--five novels by Cooper that cover the live of a great woodsman in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most well known of the stories "Last of the Mohicans", was neither the very first written nor the very first in sequence, as Cooper compiled his life-work in scattershot style.
Library of Amerca Volume 1
written in
1823 "The Pioneers"
1826 "The Last of the Mohicans"
1827 "The Prairie"
Library of America Volume 2
(James Fenimore Cooper : The Leatherstocking Tales II: The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer (Library of America))
written in
1840 "The Pathfinder"
1841 "The Deerslayer"
Books in the Library of America series deserve praise for their quality binding and paper, portable size, minimal but useful supporting materials, and reasonable price. I was fortunate to find this 2-volume set at a library book sale brand new (still in shrink wrap!) for $4 (total list price of $75).
First, lets address the order in which the reader may choose to read the books--as written by Cooper, or in chronological order of the character Natty Bumpo. After some internal debate, I chose to read them as Cooper wrote them, looking for changes in his character and his writing style to see if either the books or the character notably improved or regressed. To read them in chronological order of Natty Bumpo'ls life, read in this sequence:
"The Deerslayer"
"The Last of the Mohicans" - set in 1757 near present-day Glen Falls, NY, during the French and Indian War (the story references historical events and characters from the war).
"The Pathfinder"
"The Pioneers" - set in 1780s in upstate New York, farther west than the events in "Mohicans"
"The Prairie" - set in 1805 in the American midwest.
Cooper started with "The Pioneers", placing the aging Bumpo close to the end of his scouting career as the pioneers of the title crowd into and cut down his wilderness in upstate New York. The pioneers clear out the forests that Bumpo knows and loves. and drive away the wildlife he knows and respects and on which he earns his living and his livelihood. The series starter is at once more philosophical (Cooper--through the voice of Bumpo--comes across as a thoroughly modern environmentalist) and humorous (much of the book centers around the comical characters of the pioneers) than "Last of the Mohicans". Cooper's environmentalism is best expressed by Bumpo in "The Prairies", where he prophesies with the wisdom of his 80 years:
"Look around you, men; what will the Yankee choppers say, when they have cut their path from the eastern to the western waters, and find that a hand, which can lay the 'arth bare at a blow, has been here, and swept the country, in very mockery of their wickedness. They will turn on their tracks, like a fox that doubles, and then the rank smell of their own footsteps, will show them the madness of their waste."
We have lived to witness the fulfillment of his prophecy.
"Mohicans" is 2/3 of a ripping fast adventure story, that bogs down in the last 1/3 in arcane Native American politics. Cooper makes much--too much--of the political differences between and among Native tribes, distinctions made by a 19th century writer of an 18th century tale, distinctions based on 16th-century white European biases, none of which are meaningful or accurate to 21st century readers steeped in 20th-century revisionism to try to correct the tragic history of those last 5 centuries.
That said, it is easy to see why "Mohicans" is the centerpiece and most popular of the books, and the one most accessible to Hollywood (12 movie and television versions, including some foreign language films, most recently starring Daniel-Day Lewis in 1992). Cooper knows how to write a chase and a cliffhanger which that best screenwriter would have trouble improving upon, and his main characters (Bumpo and his native partners Chingachgook and Uncas) are not only strikingly modern in their environmentalism, but also in their laconic heroism. Clint Eastwood surely must have studied and copied their delivery to create his anti-heroic Dirty Harry Callahan persona.
"The Prairie" may be the strangest to read, as the reader progresses through the tale with the foreknowledge that he will see the end of the life of Natty Bumpo the person, but not the end of Natty Bumpo the literary character. This, and Cooper's writing style that now reads as wordy and stilted, take some of the edge off what could have been a great deathbed ending. Plus, like "The Pioneers", this book returns to the semi-comic style, with characters inserted for comic relief who engage in long monologues that just don't hold up as well yesterday as when written 150 years or more ago. The Library of America notes ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Excellent, high-quality binding, paper and typeface make this volume a joy to handle and read. The classic Leatherstocking Tales have never looked better. The time line and notes help place the readings in historical perspective. In re-reading the widely-known "Last of the Mohicans" as an adult, I am surprised at the level of violence and racism expressed. Cooper's introduction warns women and clergy from reading it - an early 19'th century view, but also modern in that one must have a sense of the historical period of the story, and of the author's times, to appreciate what has changed, and what unfortunately remains unchanged in our society and in human nature.
Rated by buyers 
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In The Pioneers (1823) James Fenimore Cooper, who created the forerunner of backwoods heroes, depicts the clash between individualistic and communal impulses of people in the early development of a frontier settlement in upstate New York. The founder of the settlement, Judge Temple, is the personification of a bourgeois planned and stable society. He believes that laws imposed on individuals separate people from savages and are prerequisites for a civilized society. By trying to educate his settlers in practical approaches to farming and building and conservation of natural resources for practical use, he wishes to establish social and economic relations which are essential for a firmly structured society. Richard Jones, business assistant to Judge Temple and, later, the Sheriff of the county, is an egotistical jack-of-all-trades and represents a spirit of restless competition by which one pursues riches in order to climb the ladder of success. In contrast, the old hunter, Natty Bumppo, the solitary individual who lives in harmony with nature, is a frontier individualist who has a vision of a frontier society coexisting with nature. He craves traditional attitudes while fearing and despising civilization and its wasteful ways. His individualism is considered as a threat to Templeton and his natural laws eventually bring him into conflict with the "civilized" Judge and the people who are destroying the wilderness, a conflict that ultimately makes him escape the encroaching civilization and the lawless settlers.
Rated by buyers -
I give this 3 stars, because LotM is included here, but the other 2 novels are slow, tedious and well, I've never finished them. Volume 2 of these nice volumes includes The Deerslayer and the Pathfinder, two exciting novels that I recommend, perhaps even before LotM. My favorite is the Pathfinder. Natty Bumpo is awesome in that adventure!
Rated by buyers -
I strongly believe that James Fenimore Cooper belongs to the American and the world history. I learned the history reading his books. I have all of them and I still open them once in a while even now, forty years later.
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