THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Norwalk: Easton Press, 1979. First thus. With colour and black and white illustrations throughout by Edward A. Wilson. Large 8vo, publisher's full brown morocco, lettered and designed in gilt on the spine and covers, silk endpapers, a.e.g. xi, 377 pp. A pristine copy, as mint. A PRISTINE COPY WITH WILSON'S DYNAMIC ILLUSTRATIONS, RICH WITH COLOUR. A TRUE CORNERSTONE OF AMERICAN LITERATURE,
James Fenimore Cooper was an avid reader in an age when most literature in America was imported from England. But as an author, he decided early on that he could well do a better job of writing for a growing and distinctly American readership than could his European counterparts. And so, he began the writing of his “Leather Stocking” series of which LAST OF THE MOHICANS is the second book after the introduction of Natty Bumppo in THE DEERSLAYER but the most famous of all the titles in the group and the “first in which the scout...was made the symbol of all that was wise, heroic and romantic in the lives and characters of the white men who made the American wilderness their home....This novel glorified for the many generations of readers, in England, France, Russia and at home, some aspects of American life that were unique to our cultural history.”