The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper, Fiction, Classics, Historical, Action & Adventure

by James Fenimore Cooper

Overview

The Prairie finds James Fenimore Cooper's heroic frontiersman, Natty Bumppo, near the end of his adventurous life. But even at "eighty seasons," Natty stands "a little remarkable," as Cooper describes him. Natty's sinewy build allows him to carry his heavy rifle with an ease that promises he still knows how to use it. And when someone needs to reason with the Indians, Natty -- "the trapper" -- is the man to trust. The perfect screen version of The Prairie would star Sean Connery. Published in 1827, the book is one of five in Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales," a saga that takes Bumppo from the woods and hills of of New York, west into the hard plains. Cooper himself went the opposite direction: He wrote much of The Prairie in Paris. He scouted the mythology of the Old West -- the part that comes from the imagination, not from real life in a log cabin. And he showed why the West he imagined is better. For one thing, it allows such a "valiant, a just and a wise warrior" as Bumppo the noble end he deserves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603125178
Publisher:	Aegypan
Publication date:	03/01/2008
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

James Fenimore Cooper (1789 - 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. He lived most of his life in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William on property that he owned. Cooper was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and, in his later years, contributed generously to it. Before embarking on his career as a writer, he served in the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. The novel that launched his career was The Spy, a tale about counterespionage set during the Revolutionary War and published in 1821. He also wrote numerous sea stories and his best-known works are five historical novels of the frontier period known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among naval historians, Cooper's works on the early U.S. Navy have been well received, but they were sometimes criticized by his contemporaries. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.

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