A statue of this great original creation of
American fiction now overlooks Otsego Lake. Leatherstocking embodies the
fearlessness, the energy, the rugged honesty, of the worthiest of our
pioneers, of those men who opened up our vast inland country and gave it to
us to enjoy. Ulysses is no more typically Grecian than Leatherstocking is
American.
_The Leatherstocking Tales_ are five in number. The order in which they
should be read to follow the hero from youth to old age is as follows:--
[Footnote: The figures in parenthesis refer to the date of publication.]
_The Deerslayer; or The First War Path_ (1841).
_The Last of the Mohicans; a Narrative of 1757_ (1826).
_The Pathfinder; or the Inland Sea_ (1840).
_The Pioneers; or the Sources of the Susquehanna_ (1823).
_The Prairie; a Tale_ (1827)
[Illustration: LEATHERSTOCKING]
This sequence may be easily remembered from the fact that the first chief
words in the titles, "Deerslayer," "Mohicans," "Pathfinder," "Pioneers,"
and "Prairie," are arranged in alphabetical order. These books are the
prose _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of the eighteenth-century American pioneer.
Instead of relating the fall of Ilium, Cooper tells of the conquest of the
wilderness.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171