The Pioneers (Writings of James Fenimore Cooper) - Softcover

Cooper, James Fenimore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0873954238 ISBN 13: 9780873954235

Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr, 1980

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Publisher:

From its remarkable first scene--in which a gunshot finds an unintended target--to its fiery climax in the woods of New York State, The Pioneers is a rich chronicle of early frontier life filled with action, adventure, romance, and history. It is also the work that established James Fenimore Cooper as the first great American novelist. The first installment if what would later become the famous Leatherstocking Tales, The Pioneers introduces readers to the colorful and enduring character of frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Forced by a local landowner to obey new hunting laws, Natty Bumppo rebels and finds allies in the landowner's daughter and a mysterious young stranger. Against the backdrop of the changing seasons, a varied cast of unforgettable characters is caught up in a drama that illuminates the essence of the American character and the conflict between a restlessly expanding society and the unspoiled wilderness that was here before us all.

From the Back Cover:

Originally published in 1823, the novel is the first of Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales and the one that incorporates most fully his own experience of growing up in a town on the American frontier. He provides brilliant pictures of village life, from Christmas dinner and a turkey shoot, to church and tavern, deer hunt and forest fire, and village courtship and courtroom drama. The heart of the novel is a conflict over who owns America, and by what concept of right.

About this edition

• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr
• Publication date: 1980
• ISBN 10: 0873954238
• ISBN 13: 9780873954235
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 460