The Last of the Mohicans is the second and most popular of James Fenimore Cooper￯﾿ﾽs five Leatherstocking Tales. Set in 1757 during the fierce French and Indian wars, Cooper￯﾿ﾽs classic novel of adventure follows an adroit scout and his companion as they weave through the lush and spectacular wilderness of upstate New York, fighting to save the beautiful daughters of a fort commander from a treacherous Huron renegade.

With its death-defying chases and teeth-clenching suspense, this historical romance established many archetypes of American frontier fiction: the brave, skillful loner (Hawkeye), who rejects "white" civilization while aiding the settlers who spread it; the "noble savage" (Chingachgook) who becomes his deepest friend; a plot involving chases, epic battles, and lovely heroines (Cora and Alice Munro) menaced by an Indian renegade (Magua); and the central role played by the most important "character" of all, the magnificent but dangerous wilderness.

An engrossing "Western" by America￯﾿ﾽs first great novelist, The Last of the Mohicans is a story of survival and treachery, love and deliverance.


Introduction and Notes by Stephen Railton
Professor of American Literature at the University of Virginia, Stephen Railton is also the author of Fenimore Cooper: A Study of His Life and Imagination, Authorship and Audience: Literary Performance in the American Renaissance, and Mark Twain: A Short Introduction. He is the creator of two major electronic archives: Mark Twain in His Times (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton) and Uncle Tom￯﾿ﾽs Cabin and American Culture (http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc).

James Fenimore Cooper was born September 15, 1789, in Burlington, New Jersey. Motivated by a challenge posed by his wife Susan, Cooper wrote his first novel, Precaution (1820). Encouraged by favorable reviews, Cooper wrote additional books in quick succession and was soon regarded as a major voice in America￯﾿ﾽs emerging literary tradition. He eventually published thirty-two novels and was the first American to make a living as a professional novelist. Natty Bumppo, who appears in The Last of the Mohicans and the four other Leatherstocking Tales that Cooper published between 1823 and 1841, has become one of America￯﾿ﾽs favorite fictional heroes.


"As a myth, the story of Leatherstocking cannot tell us where we came from, nor help us with where, as a nation or as individuals, we must find ways to go. But it does give us an imaginative place of respite, from our past and our future. The novel￯﾿ﾽs wilderness setting is a realm of terror and bloodshed, because it is a screen onto which the facts of history and desire can be projected. But among the swirl of those horrors, Hawkeye stands strongly centered on what he doesn￯﾿ﾽt need￯﾿ﾽnot land, not money, not social prestige, not even love."￯﾿ﾽfrom the Introduction by Stephen Railton