In this classic novel, James Fenimore Cooper portrays life in a new settlement on New York\'s Lake Otsego in the closing years of the eighteenth century.
Just before his death in 1851 an edition of his works led to a reappraisal of his fiction and somewhat restored his reputation as the first of American writers..
In his last decade he faced declining popularity brought on in part by his waspish attacks on critics and political opponents.
He returned to Otsego Hall in 1834, and after a series of relatively unsuccessful books of essays, travel sketches, and history, he returned to fiction - and to Leatherstocking - with The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841).
Two of his most successful works, The Prairie and The Red Rover , were published in 1827.
From 1826 to 1833 Cooper and his family lived and traveled in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany.
By 1826 when The Last of the Mohicans appeared, his standing as a major novelist was clearly established.
His second book, The Spy (1821), was an immediate success, and with The Pioneers (1823) he began his series of Leatherstocking Tales.
The result was Precaution (1820), a novel of manners.
At thirty he was suddenly plunged into a literary career when his wife challenged his claim that he could write a better book that the English novel he was reading to her.
Educated at Yale, he spent five years at sea, as a foremast hand and then as a midshipman in the navy.
About the Author: James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) grew up at Otsego Hall, his father\'s manorial estate near Lake Otsego in upstate New York.
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Quite possibly America\'s first best-seller (more than three thousand copies were sold within hours of publication), The Pioneers today evokes a vibrant and authentic picture of the American pioneering experience.
He writes of the conflicts within the settlement itself, focusing primarily on the contrast between the natural codes of the hunter and woodsman Natty Bumppo and his Indian friend John Mohegan and the more rigid structure of law needed by a more complex society.
But Cooper is also concerned with exploring the development of the cultural and philosophical underpinnings of the American experience.
He describes the year\'s cycle: the turkey shoot at Christmas, the tapping of maple trees, fishing for bass in the evening, the marshalling of the militia.
In this classic novel, James Fenimore Cooper portrays life in a new settlement on New York\'s Lake Otsego in the closing years of the eighteenth century
