Deerslayer

by James Fenimore Cooper

Overview

The first book in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, The Deerslayer is the exciting tale of the Deerslayer—known by name as Natty Bumppo—a young white man raised by a Delaware Indian tribe in the pre-revolutionary American colonies. Forced to kill for the first time in battle, Natty is tortured by his Huron captors and comes to oppose many of the customs and practices of his tribesmen.

The Deerslayer, though written after the first four books in the Leatherstocking Tales, takes place before the events of The Last of the Mohicans and is considered to be the first of the series. The Deerslayer has been adapted for film, radio, and television.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780553905366
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/29/2008
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	688
Sales rank:	146,353
File size:	777 KB

About the Author

Leslie A. Fiedler is Distinguished Professor and holds the Samuel L. Clemens Chair in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Date of Birth:

September 15, 1789

Date of Death:

September 14, 1851

Place of Birth:

Burlington, New Jersey

Place of Death:

Cooperstown, New York

Education:

Yale University (expelled in 1805)

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction by Leslie A. Fiedler

In 1789, the year James Fenimore Cooper was born, the thirteen North Americancade he enjoyed a leisured existence as a gentleman farmer on inherited lands in both Cooperstown and Westchester County. Popular legend holds that Cooper turned to writing when his wife jokingly suggested that he attempt a novel, but it is now known thatme a gentleman farmer and householder. The one thing he still needed was a proper wife, which he was lucky enough to find in Susan DeLancey. She, as he already knew, came from a family richer and more securely upper class than his own and, as he learned, was also an affable, intelligent woman who was fond of reading. Cooper was content with this, yet at first he did not join her when she was busy with her books but indulged in the male pastimes of hunting and hiking in the nearby hills.

After Susan had given birth to four daughters, to whom she at first read and then taught to read to each other, Cooper would stay close enough to wherever they were reading to hear them. Surely some of the erotic and sentimental passages read in the voices of those he loved must have moved him deeply. But there is no record of any positive responses on his part. A single negative one, however, is recorded in almost everything that has ever been written about him.

One time, those accounts tell us, annoyed by the ineptitude of the text being read, he cried out, “Why do you waste time and money reading trash that anybody who can spell his own name could write better. Even me!” To this Susan is said to have answered–jokingly, according to some–“Why don’t you give it a try? I’d love to see you try.” Cooper responded that he would and, surprisingly enough, did, finally producing a full-length imitation of Jane Austen. When it was in print he would tell anyone who would listen that he was now a professional writer who would write fifty more books–and sell them. This almost no one believed he would do, and many wished he would not even try.

Though Cooper was aware that neither the critics nor the general reader were interested in any more Jane Austen clones, he felt he had to keep on writing because the family inheritance on which he had been living had begun to shrink, and at the same time it had become much more expensive to feed, clothe, and educate his growing daughters. What he really wanted to write was another book that saw the world through female eyes and talked about it in a female voice. In fact, he continued for a little while to experiment with transvestite fiction, even publishing two such short stories under the female pseudonym of Jane Morgan.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Historical Introduction

Preface [1841]

Preface to the Leather-Stocking Tales [1850]

Preface [1850]

The Deerslayer

Explanatory Notes

Textual Commentary

Note on the Manuscript

Textual Notes

Emendations

Rejected Readings

Word-Division

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for James Fenimore Cooper:

“His memory will exist in the hearts of the people... [and his works] should find a place in every American’s library.”—Daniel Webster

“Cooper emphatically belongs to the nation. He has left a space in our literature which will not easily be supplied.”—Washington Irving

Reading Group Guide

1. Though The Deerslayer is the last of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published, its events actually occur first chronologically. How, if at all, does this inform the tone of the novel?

2. Discuss the role of the landscape and the role of women in The Deerslayer. Fiedler discusses their threat to the exalted male camaraderie, particularly in the relationship of Natty and Chingachgook throughout the Leatherstocking Tales; how does Judith’s fate speak to this?

3. In his Introduction, Leslie A. Fiedler likens Cooper to a sort of American Sir Walter Scott. Does The Deerslayer strike you as a similar kind of heroic romance? Why or why not?

4. At publication, many critics disagreed with Cooper’s treatment of Judith in the novel. Discuss.

5. How does The Deerslayer establish Natty’s developing moral consciousness? What parallels or distinctions does Cooper draw between Natty and Henry March? According to Cooper, what characteristics are essential for survival on the frontier? How does he convey this?

6. Fiedler discusses Cooper’s critical maligning in the literature canon. Do you agree with Mark Twain’s assessment, mentioned in the Introduction? Why or why not? What is it about Cooper and the Leatherstocking Tales that has made them endure, in your opinion?

7. What is Cooper’s assessment of the parity between the white man and the Indian, as reflected in The Deerslayer? Is the relationship between Natty and Chingachgook an aberration or an ideal? Is The Deerslayer ultimately an optimistic work or not?

Editorial Reviews

James Fenimore Cooper was the first great American novelist.”—A. B. Guthrie

From the Publisher