Leatherstocking Tales

The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York.[1][2] Each novel features Natty Bumppo, a frontiersman known to European-American settlers as "Leatherstocking",[3] "The Pathfinder",[4] and "the trapper".[5] Native Americans call him "Deerslayer",[6] "La Longue Carabine" ("Long Rifle" in French),[7] and "Hawkeye".[8]

Cover illustration by Carl Offterdinger for a German youth edition of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales.
1989 USSR stamp, on themes of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales

Publication history

Publication history[9][10]
Publication
date
Story
dates
TitleSubtitle
18411841
1740–17551740–1755
The DeerslayerThe First War Path
18261826
17571757
The Last of the MohicansA Narrative of 1757
18401840
17591758–1759
The PathfinderThe Inland Sea
18231823
17931793
The PioneersThe Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale
18271827
18041804
The PrairieA Tale

The story dates are derived from dates given in the tales and span the period roughly of 1740–1806. They do not necessarily correspond with the actual dates of the historical events described in the series, which discrepancies Cooper likely introduced for the sake of convenience. For instance, Cooper manipulated time to avoid making Leatherstocking 100 years old when he traveled to the Kansas plains in The Prairie.[11][12]

The Natty Bumppo character is generally believed to have been inspired, at least in part, by the historic explorer Daniel Boone or the lesser known David Shipman.[13] Critic Georg Lukacs likened Bumppo to Sir Walter Scott's "middling characters; because they do not represent the extremes of society, these figures can serve as tools for the social and cultural exploration of historical events, without directly portraying the history itself.[14]

Characters

  • Natty Bumppo is the protagonist of the series: an Anglo-American raised in part by Native Americans, and later a near-fearless warrior (his chief weapon is the long rifle).[15] He and his Mohican "brother" Chingachgook are constant companions. He is known as "Deerslayer" in The Deerslayer,[16] "Hawkeye" and "La Longue Carabine" in The Last of the Mohicans,[17] "Pathfinder" in The Pathfinder,[18] "Leatherstocking" in The Pioneers,[19] and "the trapper" in The Prairie.[20] The novels recount significant events in Natty Bumppo's life from 1740-1806.[21][22]
  • Chingachgook is a Mohican chief and companion of Bumppo. He is present in all the books except for The Prairie, as he dies of old age after narrowly escaping a forest fire in The Pioneers.[23]
  • Uncas, son of Chingachgook, "last of the Mohicans",[24] grew to manhood, but was killed in a battle with the hostile scout Magua. In actual history, a man named Uncas was a chief of the Mohegan in the 1600s.[25] Though only a prominent figure in The Last of the Mohicans, he is mentioned as a boy at the very end of The Deerslayer, only once by name in The Pathfinder, and several times in The Prairie.

Adaptations

Several films have been adapted from one or more of this series of Cooper's novels. Some used one of Bumppo's nicknames, most often Hawkeye, to identify this character, e.g., in:

Two Canadian TV series were based on the character of Leatherstocking:

WQED (TV) Pittsburgh's Once Upon A Classic children's television series produced a four-episode adaptation entitled Leatherstocking Tales (1979), which won one Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Series and was nominated for another for writing. The main character's name is Natty Bumppo, though other nicknames appear.

  • Bumppo is featured in the comic book series Jack of Fables (2006-2011), along with Slue-Foot Sue, as trackers hired to capture other "Fables".
  • In Alan Moore's comic series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-2007), Natty Bumppo is featured as a member of the group assembled by Lemuel Gulliver, alongside other literary characters including Dr Syn, Fanny Hill, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Orlando.
  • In J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir (2005), among the men Moehringer gets to know is Bud, who refers to Bumppo in the following quote: "Don't think of fear as the villain. Think of fear as your guide, your pathfinder – your Natty Bumppo."
  • In the M*A*S*H franchise, the central character Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce was nicknamed this by his father, citing The Last of the Mohicans as "the only book my father ever read".

References

  1. Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Early Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2007. 752 p. 03001080528
  2. Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Later Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2017. 840 p. 030013571
  3. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Prairie: A Tale; Easton Press; Limited edition; Norwalk, Connecticut: 1968.
  4. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Pathfinder: Or The Inland Sea; Penguin Classics; London: 1989. 512 p. ISBN 0140390715
  5. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Prairie: A Tale; Easton Press; Limited edition; Norwalk, Connecticut: 1968.
  6. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Deerslayer: The First War Path; Wordsworth Classics; Hertfordshire, England: 1998. 423 p. ISBN 1853265527
  7. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Last of the Mohicans: A Tale of 1757; Bantam Classics; New York: 1982. 432 p. ISBN 012000030X
  8. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Deerslayer: The First War Path; Wordsworth Classics; Hertfordshire, England: 1998. 423 p. ISBN 1853265527
  9. Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Early Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2007. 752 p. 0300108052
  10. Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Later Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2017. 840 p. 0300135718
  11. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Prairie: A Tale; Easton Press; Limited edition; Norwalk, Connecticut: 1968.
  12. Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Later Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2017. 840 p. 0300135718
  13. Taylor, Alan. William Cooper's Town.
  14. Lukacs 69-72
  15. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Deerslayer: The First War Path; Wordsworth Classics; Hertfordshire, England: 1998. 423 p. ISBN 1853265527
  16. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Deerslayer: The First War Path; Wordsworth Classics; Hertfordshire, England: 1998. 423 p. ISBN 1853265527
  17. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Last of the Mohicans: A Tale of 1757; Bantam Classics; New York: 1982. 432 p. ISBN 012000030X
  18. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Pathfinder: Or The Inland Sea; Penguin Classics; London: 1989. 512 p. ISBN 0140390715
  19. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Pioneers: The Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale; Penguin Classics; London: 1988. 460 p. ISBN 0140390073
  20. Cooper, James Fenimore; The Prairie: A Tale; Easton Press; Limited edition; Norwalk, Connecticut: 1968.
  21. James Fenimore Cooper Society's online plot summaries of the chronologically first (The Deerslayer)
  22. The Prairie novels, indicating the initial and final years of the Leatherstocking saga
  23. The Pioneers
  24. "Uncas will be the last pure-blooded Mohican because there are no pure-blooded Mohican women for him to marry." University of Houston study guide
  25. Chief Uncas
  26. http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/L/Lederstrumpf1920.html

Works cited

  • Lukacs, Georg (1969). The Historical Novel. Penguin Books.

Original works

  • Cooper, James Fenimore (2015). The Complete Leatherstocking Tales, Vol. I. Ex Fontibus Company. ISBN 978-1514721759.
  • Cooper, James Fenimore (2015). The Complete Leatherstocking Tales, Vol. II. Ex Fontibus Company. ISBN 978-1514721803.
  • Cooper, James Fenimore & Nevins, Allan (Editor) (1954). The Leatherstocking Saga. Pantheon Books.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)

Further reading

  • Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Early Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2007. 752 p. 0300108052
  • Franklin, Wayne, James Fenimore Cooper: the Later Years; Yale University Press; New Haven, Connecticut: 2017. 840 p. 0300135718
  • Pickering, James H. & Test, George A. (Editor). "Cooper's Otsego Heritage: The Sources of The Pioneers". James Fenimore Cooper: His Country and His Art (Papers from the 1979 Conference at State University College of New York, Oneonta and Cooperstown). pp. 11–39.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  • Rans, Geoffrey (1991). Cooper's Leather-Stocking Novels: A Secular Reading. University of North Carolina Press.
  • White, Craig (2006). Student Companion to James Fenimore Cooper. Greenwood Publishing. pp. 59–185. ISBN 0313334137.
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