The Pioneers, or the Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale

James Fenimore Cooper; James Franklin Beard; Lance Schachterle; Kenneth M. Andersen Jr.

ISBN 10: 0873953592 / ISBN 13: 9780873953597

Edité par State University of New York Press, 1980

A propos de cet article

Cloth, dj. Historical introduction and explanatory notes by James Franklin Beard. Text established by Lance Schachterle and Kenneth M. Andersen Jr. Moderate scuffing, toning, and edge wear to dj, with small chips and tears at extremities. Minor shelf wear to boards. Foxing to top edge of text block. Else very sound, with clean internals.

N° de réf. du vendeur 2043802

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Pioneers, or the Sources of the Susquehanna; A Descriptive Tale
• Éditeur: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 1980
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0873953592
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780873953597
• Reliure: Hardcover
• État de l'article: Very good
• État de la jaquette: Very good
• Poids: 2,3 livres
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Literary Criticism

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Written in 1821-22 at a crucial point in Cooper's life and based on some of his most cherished youthful memories, The Pioneers today evokes the American pioneering experience with astonishing vibrance of authentic detail and a largeness of philosophic grasp seldom if ever equaled in our fiction.

The circumstances behind the composition and publication of the book are here explained for the first time; and the text, originally set without competent supervision in the midst of the yellow fever epidemic in New York in 1822, is presented with the cumulative improvements of Cooper's "strenuous pen" in five subsequent revisions, without the customary accumulation of compositorial errors.

Quite possibly America's first bestseller (3,500 copies were sold within hours of publication), The Pioneers became the first of the world-famous Leatherstocking Tales. Its verbal pictures "excited a sensation among the artists, altogether unprecedented in the history of our domestic literature" and helped establish the style of the Hudson River School, our first group of landscape painters. Translated early into all the major languages of Europe, The Pioneers was one of the first American novels to carry distinctive, authoritative American experience to the world.

Biographie de l'auteur

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) was born in New Jersey but grew up in Cooperstown, NY, founded by his father when Cooper was one year old. He enrolled at Yale at the age of thirteen, but was expelled in his third year for misbehavior. He then sailed before the mast as a merchant seaman and as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy, experiences that led to his successful sea novels, such as The Pilot (1823). The Leatherstocking Tales were published from 1823 to 1841. Arranged according to the chronology of their hero, Natty Bumppo, who appears under various names in all five romances, the sequence is The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and The Prairie. His works have been translated into numerous languages and have been enthusiastically received because of their vigor and robust narration. Cooper died in 1851 at his home in Cooperstown.
 
Max Cavitch is the author of American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman and of a variety of articles on American literature and art. He is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves on the Advisory Council of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and he is co-editor of the book series Early American Studies.

Edward Watts is professor of English at Michigan State University. He is the author, most recently, of In This Remote Country: Colonial French Culture in the Anglo-American Imagination, 1780-1860 and co-editor of Mapping Region in Early American Writing.