James Fenimore Cooper

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Gear up for a stiff dose of frontier life with The Pathfinder, the third novel in James Fenimore Cooper's beloved Leatherstocking Tales series. Focusing on the pioneer hero Natty Bumppo and his efforts to help the scattered members of a frontier community in the American Midwest, the novel is rich in historical detail, conflict, and adventure.

The Lake Gun by James Fenimore Cooper. "'The Lake Gun" is a satirical short story by James Fenimore Cooper first published in 1850. The short story was commission by George E. Wood for $100, and published in a miscellany titled The Parthenon. The short story satirizes political demagoguery, focused on William Henry Seward. The title of the story comes from a mysterious loud exploding sound coming from Seneca Lake, called "The Lake Gun" by European American settlers to the area, and known today as the Seneca Guns. These sounds remain unexplained to this day, with no clear or agreed-upon cause.

The Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore Cooper

The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper. The Prairie: A Tale (1827) is a novel by James Fenimore Cooper, the third novel written by him featuring Natty Bumppo. The story opens with Ishmael, his family, Ellen and Abiram slowly making their way across the virgin prairies of the Midwest looking for a homestead, just two years after the Louisiana Purchase, and during the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They meet the trapper (Natty Bumppo), who has left his home in New York state to find a place where he cannot hear the sound of people cutting down the forests. In the years between his other adventures and this novel, he tells us only that he has walked all the way to the Pacific Ocean and seen all the land between the coasts (a heroic feat, considering Lewis and Clark hadn

Excerpt: ... Stephen both came panting down to the house; so much easier is it to descend in this world than to mount. A swivel was instantly loaded and fired as a signal; and, in half an hour, a boat was manned and ready. Roswell took command himself, leaving his second mate to look after the schooner. Stimson went with his captain, and in less than one hour after he had first seen the strange sail, our hero was actually pulling out of the cove, with a view to go to her assistance. Roswell Gardiner was as good-hearted a fellow as ever lived. He had a sufficient regard for his own interests, as well as for those of others entrusted to his care; but, these main points looked after, he would cheerfully have worked a month to relieve the Vineyard-men from the peril that so plainly beset them. Setting his sails the instant the boat was clear of the rocks, away he went, then, as fast as ash and canvass could carry him, which was at a rate but little short of eight knots in the hour. As he was thus flying towards his object, our young mariner formed a theory in his own mind, touching the drift of the ice in the adjacent seas. It was simply this. He had sounded in entering the great bay, and had ascertained that comparatively shallow water existed between the south-eastern extremity of Sealer's Land and the nearest island opposite. It was deep enough to admit the largest vessel that ever floated, and a great deal more than this; but it was not deep enough to permit an ice-berg to pass. The tides, too, ran in races among the islands, which prevented the accumulation of ice at the southern entrance, while the outer currents seemed to set everything past the group to allow of the floating mountains to collect to the eastward, where they appeared to be thronged. It was on the western verge of this wilderness of ice-bergs and ice fields that the strange sail had been seen working her way towards the group, which must be plainly in view from her decks, as her distance from...

The Pathfinder: The Inland Sea by James Fenimore Cooper. The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1840. It is the fourth novel Cooper wrote featuring Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero, and the third chronological episode of the Leatherstocking Tales. The inland sea of the title is Lake Ontario. The Pathfinder shows Natty at his old trick of guiding tender damsels through the dangerous woods, and the siege at the blockhouse and the storm on Lake Ontario are considerably like other of Cooper's sieges and storms. Natty, in this novel commonly called the Pathfinder, keeps in a hardy middle age his simple and honest nature, which is severely tested by his love for a young girl. She is a conventional heroine of romance. A certain soft amiability about her turns for a time all the thoughts of the scout to the world of domestic affections. More talkative than ever before, he reveals new mental and moral traits. With the same touch of realism which had kept Uncas and Cora apart in The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper separates these lovers, and sends Natty's romantic interest to the arms of a younger suitor, restoring the hero to his home in the wilderness.

The Lake Gun by James Fenimore Cooper. "'The Lake Gun" is a satirical short story by James Fenimore Cooper first published in 1850. The short story was commission by George E. Wood for $100, and published in a miscellany titled The Parthenon. The short story satirizes political demagoguery, focused on William Henry Seward. The title of the story comes from a mysterious loud exploding sound coming from Seneca Lake, called "The Lake Gun" by European American settlers to the area, and known today as the Seneca Guns. These sounds remain unexplained to this day, with no clear or agreed-upon cause.

Ned Myers or, A Life Before the Mast by James Fenimore Cooper. In less than an hour we were sent on board the enemy's vessels. I was carried to the Royal George, but Mr. Trant was taken on board the Wolfe. The Growler had lost her bowsprit, and was otherwise damaged, and had been forced to strike also. She had a man killed, and I believe one or two wounded. 8] On board of us, not a man, besides myself, had been touched We seemed to have been preserved by a miracle, for every one of the enemy had a slap at us, and, for some time, we were within pistol-shot. Then we had no quarters at all, being perfectly exposed to grape and canister. The enemy must have fired too high, for nothing else could have saved us. In July, while I still belonged to the Scourge, I had been sent with a boat's crew, under Mr. Bogardus, on board an English flag of truce that had come into the Harbour. While in this vessel, our boat's crew were "hail-fellows-well-met" with the Englishmen, and we had agreed among us to take care of each other, should either side happen to be taken. I had been on board the Royal George but a short time, when two of these very men came up to me with some grog and some grub; and next morning they brought me my bitters. I saw no more of them, however, except when they came to shake hands with us at the gang-way, as we were leaving the ship.

The Two Admirals By James Fenimore Cooper

New York by James Fenimore Cooper. THE increase of the towns of Manhattan, as, for the sake of convenience, we shall term New York and her adjuncts, in all that contributes to the importance of a great commercial mart, renders them one of the most remarkable places of the present age. Within the distinct recollections of living men, they have grown from a city of the fifth or sixth class to be near the head of all the purely trading places of the known world. That there are sufficient causes for this unparalleled prosperity, will appear in the analysis of the natural advantages of the port, in its position, security, accessories, and scale. The State of New York had been steadily advancing in population, resources, and power, ever since the peace of 1785. At that time it bore but a secondary rank among what were then considered the great States of the Confederacy. Massachusetts, proper and singly, then outnumbered us, while New England, collectively, must have had some six or seven times our people. A very few years of peace, however, brought material changes. In 1790, the year in which the first census under the law of Congress was taken, the State already contained 340,120 souls, while New England had a few more than a million. It is worthy of remark that, sixty years since, the entire State had but little more than half of the population of the Manhattanese towns at the present moment

The Deerslayer is the last book in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy, but acts as a prequel to the other novels. It begins with the rapid civilizing of New York, in which surrounds the following books take place. It introduces the hero of the Tales, Natty Bumppo, and his philosophy that every living thing should follow its own nature. He is contrasted to other, less conscientious, frontiersmen.

The Wing-and-Wing By James Fenimore Cooper