The Choice Works of Cooper Deerslayer Author:James Fenimore Cooper Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Harv'.pd [university! LIBRARY .t ij j.j4 Eotorad eearding to Act of Oongraii, 1n lb jta ISM, bj STEIXGEE TOWNSESD, 1d the Clcrk'i Office of the Di... more »strict Court of tlie United Stalet for the Sonthtn DUulct of Xw York. R. C YAiormn, Sttnctrptr. Jwn F. Tmw, chapter{Section 4PREFACE LEATHER-STOCKING TALES. This series of Stories, which has obtained the name of " The Leather-Stocking Tales," has been written in a very desultory and inartificial manner. The order in which the several books appeared was essentially different from that in which they would have been presented to the world, had the regular course of their incidents been consulted. In the Pioneers, the first of the series written, the Leather-Stocking is represented as already old, and driven from his early haunts in the forest, by the sound of the axe, and the smoke of the settler. " The Last of the Mohicans," the next book in the order of publication, carried the readers back to a much earlier period in the history of our hero, representing him as middle-aged, and in the fullest vigor of manhood. In the Prairie, his career terminates, and he is laid in his grave. There, it was originally the intention to leave him, in the expectation that, as in the case of the human mass, he would soon be forgotten. But a latent regard for this character induced the author to resuscitate him in " The Pathfinder," a book that was not long after succeeded by" The Deerslayer," thus completing the series as it now exists. While the five books that have been written were originally published in the order just mentioned, that of the incidents, insomuch as they are connected with the career of their principal character, is, as has been stated, very different. Taking the life of the Leather- Stocking as a guide, " ...« less