THE PATHFINDER

Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840. FIRST EDITION, First Issue (with imprint of Fagan and Collins at center of p. [2]; no copyright notice). 180 x 110 mm. (7 x 4 1/8"). Two volumes..
Attractive late 19th century scarlet crushed morocco, gilt, covers with gilt-rule frame accentuated with bow-arrow-tomahawk tool at corners, raised bands, spines gilt in compartments with bow tool or crossed rifles at center, foliate spray at corners, gilt titling, turn-ins with frame of plain and dotted rules, foliate tool at corners, leather hinges, emerald green watered silk endleaves, all edges gilt. BAL 3892. ◆Just the slightest hint of wear to joints and corners, occasional trivial foxing, but AN EXTREMELY FINE COPY, the binding lustrous and the text especially fresh and clean.

This is a decoratively bound first printing of the further adventures of Natty Bumppo, the hero of "Last of the Mohicans." The first American writer to gain widespread international recognition, Cooper (1789-1851) is the only author who can justly be compared to Scott in the field of the romantic novel. Although they are chiefly thought of as vehicles for romanticizing the American frontier, Cooper's works are serious explorations of the theme described by Day as a "search for enduring moral values amidst incessant change." The present major work is the fourth of Cooper's five famous Leather-stocking novels, all featuring the mythic wilderness hunter Bumppo, "the prototype of a recurrent figure in American fiction: the free, noble, solitary American who denies a safe and conforming life in order to maintain dignity, self-possession, and the natural inner discipline of true democracy." (Day) In this work, Bumppo saves Mabel Dunham, the daughter of an army sergeant at a frontier fort, from the ravages of nature and of lustful men, but when he is encouraged by the sergeant to marry Mabel, he predictably slips away into the wilderness..