The Deerslayer: Classic Illustrated 17

by James Fenimore Cooper, Louis Zansky (Illustrator)

The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path (1841) was James Fenimore Cooper's last novel in his Leatherstocking Tales. Its 1740-1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's is set on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York. The Deerslayer introduces Natty Bumppo as 'Deerslayer'. He is a young frontiersman in early 18th-century New York, who objects to the practice of taking scalps, on the grounds that every living thing should follow 'the gifts' of its nature. This should stop European Americans from taking scalps.

49 pages, Paperback

Published October 5, 2020

About the author

James Fenimore Cooper was a popular and prolific American writer. He is best known for his historical novel The Last of the Mohicans, one of the Leatherstocking Tales stories, and he also wrote political fiction, maritime fiction, travelogues, and essays on the American politics of the time. His daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper was also a writer.

Series:
* The Leatherstocking Tales
* The Littlepage Manuscripts
* Afloat and Ashore
* Homeward Bound