1789-1851 · American novelist, author of the Leatherstocking Tales
About James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) grew up at Cooperstown, the frontier village in upstate New York founded by his father, served as a midshipman in the United States Navy, and began writing novels in 1820. He created the American frontier romance and the sea novel, and his five Leatherstocking Tales, The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841), follow the scout Natty Bumppo from youth to death. He was the first American novelist to win a wide European readership.
“Where are the blossoms of those summers!—fallen, one by one; so all of my family departed, each in his turn, to the land of spirits. I am on the hilltop and must go down into the valley; and when Uncas follows in my footsteps there will no longer be any of the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans.”
“My day has been too long. In the morning I saw the sons of Unamis happy and strong; and yet, before the night has come, have I lived to see the last warrior of the wise race of the Mohicans.”
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is set in the wilderness of northern New York during the French and Indian War. Colonel Munro, the Scottish commander of Fort William Henry on Lake George, which the scout calls the Horican, is threatened by the French general Montcalm and his Native allies.