The Prairie Author:James Fenimore Cooper The Prairie marks the closing chapter in James Fenimore Cooper's great American saga of the frontiersman Natty Bumppo. In flight from the ever-encroaching forces of civilization, the aging hero of the Leatherstocking Tales has journeyed westward seeking to end his days in the still-virgin wilderness of the Great Plains. But once more he is d... more »rawn into an involvement with society in the form of an emigrant party lead by the embittered outcast Ishmael Bush. Once again this man of nature finds himself in dramatic confrontation with civilization--called upon to exhibit his courage, his resourcefulness, his singular brand of moral rectitude. Written with the narrative vigor and descriptive power that shape the entire Leatherstocking series, The Prairie is, in the words of John William Ward, "a threnody over the passing of something fine and heroic in American life... the passing of an ideal natural order before the inevitable advance of society... We still read Cooper today because he was the first of our authors to seize upon the dramatic possibilities of that unfallen western world that stands at the beginning of our national life."« less
Typical Fenimore Cooper read -- a manners novel, but one of the first depictions of the American West, and the germ of an entire genre. If you are reading outside a class, check the scholarship online, it will help immensely.