Deerslayer (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by James Fenimore Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

actually occurred as the legend suggests, did not bring about the pneumonia.
    9 Cooper himself believed the Leatherstocking novels to be his best. In the preface (p. 6) he states, “If anything from the pen of the writer of these romances is at all to outlive himself, it is, unquestionably, the series of The Leatherstocking Tales.”
    10 Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923; reprint: New York: Viking Press, 1961.
    11 A boat might have pulled beneath “the branches of dark Rembrandt-looking hemlocks” (p. 29). “The scene was such as a poet or an artist would have delighted in, but it had no charm for Hurry Harry” (p. 47). It did have charm, however, for Deerslayer to whom the thought did occur.
    12 For an interesting discussion of why Natty bequeaths the rifle to Hist in The Deerslayer, and in The Prairie selects Hard-Heart, the Pawnee Indian Chief, as the recipient of his belongings, see William Owen, “Natty Changes His Will: Legacies and Beneficiaries in The Deerslayer and The Prairie,” paper presented at the Cooper Panel of the 2000 Conference of the American Literature Association held in Long Beach, California, originally published in James Fenimore Cooper Society Miscellaneous Papers no. 13, July 2000, pp. 7-12 (available on the James Fenimore Cooper Society Web site: www.oneonta.edu/external / cooper / artic1es.html ).

—“What Terrors round him wait!
Amazement in his van, with Flight combined
And sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.” 1
    Thomas GRAY , The Bard, II.60-62

PREFACE TO THE DEERSLAYER [1850] 1
    As has been stated in the preface to the series of The Leatherstocking Tales, The Deerslayer is properly the first in the order of reading, though the last in that of publication. In this book the hero is represented as just arriving at manhood, with the freshness of feeling that belongs to that interesting period of life, and with the power to please that properly characterizes youth. As a consequence, he is loved; and, what denotes the real waywardness of humanity, more than it corresponds with theories and moral propositions, perhaps, he is loved by one full of art, vanity, and weakness, and loved principally for his sincerity, his modesty, and his unerring truth and probity. The preference he gives to the high qualities named, over beauty, delirious passion, and sin, it is hoped, will offer a lesson that can injure none. This portion of the book is intentionally kept down, though it is thought to be suf ficiently distinct to convey its moral.
    The intention has been to put the sisters in strong contrast; one, admirable in person, clever, filled with the pride of beauty, erring, and fallen; the other, barely provided with sufficient capacity to know good from evil, instinct, notwithstanding, with the virtues of woman, reverencing and loving God, and yielding only to the weakness of her sex, in admiring personal attractions in one too coarse and unobservant to distinguish or to understand her quiet, gentle feeling in his favor.
    As for the scene of this tale, it is intended for, and believed to be a close description of the Otsego, prior to the year 1760, when the first rude settlement was commenced on its banks, at that time only an insignificant clearing near the outlet, with a small hut of squared logs, for the temporary dwelling of the Deputy Superintendent of Indian affairs. The recollections of the writer carry him back distinctly to a time when nine tenths of the shores of this lake were in the virgin forest, a peculiarity that was owing to the circumstance of the roads running through the first range of valleys removed from the water side. The woods and the mountains have ever formed a principal source of beauty with this charming sheet of water, enough of the former remaining to this day to relieve the open grounds from monotony and tameness.
    In most respects the descriptions of scenery in the tale are reasonably accurate. The rock appointed for the rendezvous between the