The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper, Blake Nevius (Introduction)

Overview

Infused with imaginative vitality, James Fenimore Cooper's romantic tale of adventure was immediately successful when first published in 1824.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140390261
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/06/1987
Series:	Leatherstocking Tale
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.11(w) x 7.74(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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.

Date of Birth:

September 15, 1789

Date of Death:

September 14, 1851

Place of Birth:

Burlington, New Jersey

Place of Death:

Cooperstown, New York

Education:

Yale University (expelled in 1805)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Historical Introduction

Preface [1827]

Introduction [1832]

Interpolations in 1832 Introduction [1849]

The Prairie

Textual Commentary

Note on the Manuscripts

Textual Notes

Emendations

Rejected Readings

Word-Division