Bumppo in the night...
Natty Bumppo....a White child raised by Indians, Bumppo
learns the ways of the Native American, the ways of the forest and the ways of
the rifle...known as Deerslayer, Hawkeye,
Long Carbine...Bumppo becomes fearsome with the flintlock...taking him from youth to old age in the series of books that became known as the
Leatherstocking Tales.
Natty Bumppo...it's a crazy name for an 18th century superhero...but for James Fenimore Cooper and his 19th century classic about the mid 18th century, it was pure unadulterated American legend being created in his hand. The Last of the Mohicans is the most well known book of the series, garnering more than its share of fame through stage, film and "pulp" media (between 1912 and 1992, there were no less than 9 motion pictures based of this particular novel). Its influence reached worldwide proportions...even the former Soviet Union was captured by the allure...issuing a set of postage stamps celebrating the book and series in 1989. However, Cooper completed four more books in the saga, creating the 19th century equivalent of North and South...
Natty Bumppo...it's a crazy name for an 18th century superhero...but for James Fenimore Cooper and his 19th century classic about the mid 18th century, it was pure unadulterated American legend being created in his hand. The Last of the Mohicans is the most well known book of the series, garnering more than its share of fame through stage, film and "pulp" media (between 1912 and 1992, there were no less than 9 motion pictures based of this particular novel). Its influence reached worldwide proportions...even the former Soviet Union was captured by the allure...issuing a set of postage stamps celebrating the book and series in 1989. However, Cooper completed four more books in the saga, creating the 19th century equivalent of North and South...
The first book is a retrospective story. Our
protagonist, Natty was an old man trying to survive in an ever-changing
"new world" and the disappearing frontier of New York. It's hard to believe but western New York was
a frontier full of wild beasts and even wilder Indians. The
Pioneers appeared in 1823, and was followed in 1826 by the second book in
the pentalogy, The Last of the Mohicans. It continued the tale of Bumppo as a young man during the French and Indian War
of the 1750's. The Prairie followed this in 1827, in which our protagonist is at
the end of his life in 1804, but still nobly assisting those in need of
help.
It wasn’t until 1840 that Cooper again published another
book in the saga...The Pathfinder, a
continuation, or sequel, to The Last of
the Mohicans, also taking place in the 1750's. Lastly, Cooper published The Deerslayer in 1841, it being the final book written, and the
first book of the saga, portraying Natty Bumppo in his youth.
Cooper's Leatherstocking
Tales pulls
in real life figures such as Daniel Boone and transforms them into legendary,
romantic, literary icons. These
classics blend the cult of the noble hero into the noble savage, into the
romantic notion of the last true man standing between light and darkness. All of this, against a historical backdrop
full of good and evil (especially amongst the Native American characters and the
French...of course), gave the American public the makings of an indigenous
saga...
The novels of the Leatherstocking
Tales are as follows:
The Deerslayer -
The First War Path / Covering the years 1740-1755 - Published in 1841
The Last of the
Mohicans - A Narrative of 1757 / Covering the year 1757 - Published in 1826
(First English edition published about a month after the
first American edition.)
The Pathfinder - The
Inland Sea / Covering the 1750's - Published in 1840
The Pioneers - The Sources of the
Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale / Covering the year 1793 -
Published in 1823
The
Prairie - A Tale / Covering the year 1804 - Published
in 1827