The Pioneers or the Sources of the Susquehanna: A Descriptive Tale

by James Fenimore Cooper, James Franklin Beard, Lance Schachterle, Kenneth M. Andersen Jr.

Overview

Written in 1821-22 at a crucial point in Cooper's life and based on some of his most cherished youthful memories, The Pioneers today evokes the American pioneering experience with astonishing vibrance of authentic detail and a largeness of philosophic grasp seldom if ever equaled in our fiction.

The circumstances behind the composition and publication of the book are here explained for the first time; and the text, originally set without competent supervision in the midst of the yellow fever epidemic in New York in 1822, is presented with the cumulative improvements of Cooper's "strenuous pen" in five subsequent revisions, without the customary accumulation of compositorial errors.

Quite possibly America's first bestseller (3,500 copies were sold within hours of publication), The Pioneers became the first of the world-famous Leatherstocking Tales. Its verbal pictures "excited a sensation among the artists, altogether unprecedented in the history of our domestic literature" and helped establish the style of the Hudson River School, our first group of landscape painters. Translated early into all the major languages of Europe, The Pioneers was one of the first American novels to carry distinctive, authoritative American experience to the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780873954235
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	06/30/1980
Series:	The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	460
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1260L (what's this?)

About the Author

The creator of two genres that became staples of American literature — the sea romance and the frontier adventure — James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was born in New Jersey, raised in the wilderness of New York, and spent five years at sea before embarking on his successful writing career. Among Cooper’s many novels, his best-known books are the five "Leatherstocking" tales — including The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans — each featuring the fictional hero Natty Bumppo.

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

Acknowledgements
Illustrations

Historical Introduction
Preface [1823]
Introduction [1832]
Interpolation in 1832 Introduction [1851]
The Pioneers
Explanatory Notes
Textual Commentary
Textual Notes
Emendations
Rejected Readings
Word-Division