The Prairie (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

By James Fenimore Cooper and Steven Frye

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.  James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie is the last episode in the Leatherstocking Tales. Set on the Great Plains just after the Louisiana Purchase, the frontier novel recounts the story of the aging trapper Natty Bumppo. The novel involves a series of conflicts between white settlers and rivaling Native American tribes. It communicates the destruction of natural resources and the tragic eradication of native peoples resulting from America's expansionist ideology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Mar 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781411466500

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was born in 1789 in New Jersey, but later moved to Cooperstown in New York, where he lived most of his life. His novel The Last of the Mohicans was one of the most widely read novels in the 19th century and is generally considered to be his masterpiece. His novels have been adapted for stage, radio, TV and film.

Reviews for The Prairie (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

[jbreedlove_6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The last of the Leatherstocking Tales shows Natty Bumpus as an old man wandering the Prairie. Written in 1827 it was the last of the series but the second written. It shows that even at this early time there were those that saw that a way of life was ending. The spread of settlements west were bringing an end to woodsmen type of American, a lifestyle, and a philosophy that would not be seen again.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The concluding volume of the pentalogy The Leatherstocking Tales is a much better book than The Pioneers. I found it moved along very well, and was consistently attention-holding. While the story is somewhat fantastic, it does have exciting events which come one right after another--in contrast to The Pioneers, wnich was pretty dull for long stretches. The trapper--Natty Bumppo--is sententious in his old age, but still a handy man to have as a friend on the western prairie. I am glad I have read, finally, these Cooper works.

[lukerik-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Reading the Leatherstocking Tales is a bit like being gang raped: there are five of them, it went on for hours and I didn't enjoy it.