The Last of the Mohicans [antikvár]

GENERAL INTRODUCTION Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal to the general reader and students. We commissioned teachers and specialists to write wide ranging, jargon-free introductions and to provide notes that would assist the understanding of our readers rather than interpret the stories for them. In the same spirit, because the pleasures of reading are inseparable from the surprises, secrets and revelations that all narratives contain, we strongly advise you to enjoy this book before turning to the Introduction. General Adviser Keith Carabine Rutherford College University of Kent at Canterbury INTRODUCTION The Last of the Mohicans (hereinafter Mohicans for short) was published in 1826 and was the second of the group of five novels, known as 'the Leatherstocking Tales', for which James Fenimore Cooper is now best known. The name derives from the central character who appears in all of them at various stages of his life and under various tides. In the first of the novels to be published, The Pioneers (1823), he is called Leatherstocking; in Mohicans he is Hawk-eye; in the third of them, The Prairie (1827), he is known as the Trapper. The two later novels in the series, The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841), take their titles fi-om his other aliases. Cooper's first novel. Precaution, had been written in 1820 when he was in his thirty-first year, and it had been published in 1821, a year which also saw the appearance of his second novel, The Spy. The first represented something of a false start - in subject and in manner it