The Last of the Mohicans (Bantam Classics)

What a joy to re-read this book again after over 40 years. The last time I read it was back in college as part of an American Lit assignment and it was not one of my favorites. Now, having lived in the same area where the narrative takes place, and having hiked in and around the Lake George/Adirondack Mountains, as well as having spent some time at Cooperstown, the tale has become much more real to me. The archaic language takes some getting used to, but, like a fine old wine, it just gets better with age.

I downloaded this classic on my Kindle Fire. It makes for an easier read on the Kindle Fire because when you get to a word that is no longer in the common everyday language, you can just highlight it and use the built in dictionary. I had no problem reading thru the ebook, I had no problems downloading the ebook and I had no problems getting thru the book from start to finish.

The Book catches the Spirit of the wilderness and of men and women of Nobeler character than can infrequently be seen in our time. I have trekked the few places of seclusion left on earth and the book feels me with yearing to return

I really enjoyed the book, although I was not pleased with the ending. The book deviated from the movie quite a bit and since it it one of my favorite movies it was a disappointing ending to the book. The character development was great and it was easy to get to know the characters.

You can't go wrong with this publication. The process of reviewing the questions included in each section as you proceed through the book is an excellent study method. You'll certainly pass the test using this book and, more importantly, in my view, you'll get a good foundation on radio theory. It will be an excellent reference for years to come regardless of how the question pool might change.

I read the description twice, as well as the reviews, and I didn't see any mention of this being a children's book. If I missed it somewhere, then mea culpa, but it's nowhere made clear. No, pictures don't say it has to have modified language, at least not to me. Some of the best books ever have illustrations, and I thought this would be one of them. There's no flaw in the story, but if you don't realize it's an adaptation, then you're not buying what you thought you were buying.

"The Last of the Mohicans" is a great adventure book full of daring heroism in the face of treachery. Cooper's treatment of the female characters is ridiculously sexists and shallow, but ignoring that, this is a very good book.

This book is the slowest book I have ever read....The end is slightly interesting (though devastating), but I feel like much of the middle could be cut. Bought this book for an American Literature class and nobody in the class (including the teacher) enjoyed it. The quality of the book itself is pretty good, though the type is a bit small and a bit close together.

My husband liked this book more than I did. I think the style of writing is slow and old-fashioned (it was written almost two hundred years ago). This is one of those times when the movie is much better than the book. But because I loved the movie, I wanted to love the book. That did not happen.
The book was very popular during the 1820's. Set in the 1750's The Last of the Mohicans is historical fiction about the French and Indian War. A small party of British (soldiers, indian guides, etc) travel around the New York wilderness defending themselves from French and Indian enemies.
"Last of the Mohicans is part of a series which tells the adventures of Hawkeye as the main protagonist. Hawkeye is a white male, who has in a sense, disowned his race and ancestors and lives in the wild with the Mohicans."
Cooper's never-ending slow, "wordy" descriptions make me want to pull my hair out. Why would you read this? Because one of your teachers (who must hate kids) made you read it.

It is an amazingly adventurous story, but I have enjoyed above all the detailed descriptions of the natural soroundings or setting and even more the narrative aspects of the old English style of writing. Looking up the Old English words or terms and becoming familiar to their Latin, Greek, or French roots has been quite instructive.

I read this book many many years ago and wanted a quality version of it to donate to the local library and this editon of it by B&N Classics was perfect for that purpose because of the foreward included in it.

I've read and re-read these many times. Enough said. The rest of this is filler. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

This is a timeless classic, it really doesn't need another review. Anyone interested in colonial history already knows the story, and Fenimore Cooper although prone to wordiness does include enough details of daily existence to keep things interesting.

Great vocabulary enhancer rating between a 4-5 star; However, unnecessary use of a large number of words (circumlocution) to
express an idea made it a slow read; therefore contributing to the lower designated 3 star assigned rating.

I read and listened via audiobook to help me absorb this book better. It didn't dissect. Even though at first I was comparing it to the Daniel Day Lewis movie, I found I enjoyed the book more than the movie.

The book itself is very good. This copy lacks any references to the author, or the original copyright info. I had no indication of this when I chose this copy to purchase. If I can, I'll never purchase this product type again.

This is a timeless classic. It is a great adventure story, a great love story and educational. It has been many years since I read it, and it was still enjoyable this time. It can be a difficult read if you let yourself be distracted from the book while reading.

The book is beautiful, however, ordered it for my son ,who is an adult and it states it is written for children 10 and up!! I don't recall seeing that in the description of the book when I ordered it! Had I seen that I would have picked one of the other copies you had available.

Saw the movie first, then read the book--should have maybe done it the other was round because the book didn't follow the movie or maybe the movie didn't follow the book. Anyway I was rather disappointed in the book--there were similarities in both but it was hard to read/follow the book.

The novel of course is a classic, what more can be said about it, but this Kindle edition I'm reading was advertised as illustrated. The illustrations have NOTHING to do with the story! Who thought up this harebrained idea to add biblical themed works of art to Last of the Mohicans?

I had (or thought I had) read these books when I was a youngster. I kind of doubt it as this version was too wordy in describing things. I probably am remembering the movies I had seen a long time ago.

I recently saw the classic movie and thought I'd enjoy reading the book. It was, however, a challenge to read and to follow the story line. Had I not seen the movie I would have been literally lost. I can't really say I enjoyed reading it but I was determined to finish and I did. Doubtful I would recommend it as pleasure reading but if you are interested in reading a "classic" novel then go for it. Historically I think it was a really great book. I love history and am awed at the struggles and obstacles our forefathers encountered while inhabiting the Americas. I know I am here because of their tenacity but I have a really soft spot for what the Indians went through which almost led to their extinction. Interestingly though they apparently fought each other for territory rights throughout history. Sadly I guess man is destined to fight for what someone else calls their own.

An old classic now too racist and sexist to be a "classic" anymore. Used to be in the Authors card game. I imagine Cooper has been replaced in that deck. I did enjoy the descriptions of the old forest at Lake Otsego at Cooperstown. JFC also used three words when one would do.

James Fenimore Cooper is not a good writer, stylistically. He never says something in five words if he can think of a way to expand it to nine, which I find off-putting. The portrayal of women is pretty lame: they are helpless creatures who need saving. His portrayal of native Americans is fascinating, if completely inaccurate. If this book had been published in 2015, I'd be completely uninterested.

However, it was published in 1826, and was supposed to take place 60 years before that. As such, it's a very interesting look at the way people of that time thought about the relationship between white colonists and native Americans. Not only that, but it was very popular at the time, and probably had a lot of influence on white attitudes toward native Americans before the big push to the west began. So I think it's worth reading for historical reasons, but not as a novel.

I was looking forward to reading this as it has been a classic for a long while and my friend highly recommended it. But I found it way too difficult to read. I guess I don't like reading sentences that are a paragraph long. Too many unnecessary adjectives. I found my concentration drifting off a lot. I did give it the old college try but finally gave up on it.

I loved the movie, so 22 years later, I decide to finally read the book. Never made it past Chapter 6. There's no way Nathaniel Hawkeye talks like that.

Roger Ebert had it right when he reviewed the 1992 movie and referred to the book as unreadable.

The particular prose used in this novel is not an easy read to comprehend. I watched the movie instead to glean a better understanding and insight into the author's story. This is the only time in my life I've enjoyed a movie more than a book. I don't recommend the book.

After hearing all my life about this book and the many movies made of it, I finally decided to read it and realized that in my opinion it belongs with hundreds of popular novels about indians and white folks. Maybe it was just the first in the genre, but I found it to be less than its reputation.

I enjoyed the richness of the language, but found it a difficult read,and the story wasn't really all that interesting. The most exciting parts were a few murders, but for the most part, I found reading this Great American Classic a chore.

Fourteen years ago, I took a history class on the development of American attitudes towards the environment. The course was divided into four sections, and for each one we had to choose three books from a list and give a brief report to the class. One of my choices for the Romantic period was _The Last of the Mohicans_, but the professor "suggested" I read Cooper's _The Pioneers_ instead. _The Pioneers_, I soon found out, was considered to be the first (truly) American novel, so I was enthusiastic about it... until I saw the subtitle: "A Descriptive Tale." I tried hard to get into it, but lengthy description is not my thing, and so it was that I read neither _The Pioneers_ (though I somehow managed to give a report on it) nor _The Last of the Mohicans_. Fast forward fourteen years: I'm a professor now, preparing my classes for the semester that is about to begin, and I have everything just about ready when a devastating hurricane makes landfall and changes everything. Reading always helps me deal with stress, and though I have literally thousands of books that I haven't read yet, I chose _The Last of the Mohicans_ as my companion during tough times.

_The Last of the Mohicans_ (1926) is the second book in James Fenimore Cooper's series The Leatherstocking Tales. Chronologically, it was published after _The Pioneers_ (1923); in terms of the saga of Leatherstocking (Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo, aka Deerslayer, aka La Longue Carabine, aka The Pathfinder, aka Hawkeye), it comes after _The Deerslayer_. By far the most well-known of the five novels in the series, _The Last of the Mohicans_ belongs to the list of classics that young people read before television, video games, the internet, and cell phones took control of our lives. This is not, however, a story for children. It is characterized by adventure, action, and a hint of romance, but Cooper's style is grandiloquent to the extent that the reader may often lose the thread of the narrative. I suspect many children had the story read to them, with commentary, which is a different thing.

The story begins in medias res, as the young stepsisters Cora and Alice Munro travel with Duncan Heyward and David Gamut towards the fort commanded by the ladies' father. They are guided by the Huron chief Magua, the book's villain. They soon run into Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo's nickname in this novel), who travels with Chingachgook (the last chief of the Mohicans) and Uncas, son of Chingachgook and the last member of the Mohican tribe. The main conflict results from Magua's abduction of the Munro sisters. As a narrator, Cooper is at his best in the penultimate chapter of the novel, which presents the resolution of the conflict. The narrative is strictly linear.

Among the positive aspects of _The Last of the Mohicans_, one must note Cooper's *relative* objectivity. He does not present Caucasians and Natives in a Manichean fashion. It is true that Magua has no redeeming qualities, and that Hawkeye is more of an archetype than a character, but the reader must keep in mind the time period in which the novel was written. Also, in _The Last of the Mohicans_ plot is more important than in _The Pioneers_. If the latter is the first memorable American novel, the former is the first memorable American tale. There were American novelists and American novels before Cooper, but they were set in Europe. Cooper was the first American writer to write about American themes. Why, then, do so many people consider Edgar Allan Poe to be the first American author? Because while Cooper's work is American in content, it is still European in form (he was, after all, referred to as "the American Sir Walter Scott). Edgar Allan Poe was the first American author of considerable fame to display formal as well as thematic originality.

Not many people read Cooper these days. Many readers will find his work dull, verbose, and unrealistic. Mark Twain famously complained about Cooper is his hilarious essay "The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper." While the attack is for the most part directed towards _The Deerslayer_ (the last novel in the Leatherstocking saga, written over two decades after _The Last of the Mohicans_), Twain basically criticizes Cooper's novels for being (1) implausible, and (2) poorly narrated. Twain, we must remember, was a realist. Cooper was very good at describing scenery with realism, but in terms of plot, his concern was mainly with telling a good story. I do side with Twain when it comes to Cooper's narrative powers. I found it hard to follow the story at some points, and I wish the author had employed throughout the book the style that makes Chapter 33 so compellingly readable. This is my only complaint, and the reason why I have given this great novel four stars instead of five.

In short, this is a very good story that demands a bit of patience. His shortcomings aside, Hawkeye is the first memorable character to appear in an American novel, or in this case, a series of novels (outside of the novel, there's Rip Van Winkle, whose story first appeared in 1819). _The Last of the Mohicans_ is contemporary with the work of the painter Thomas Cole, who painted a scene from it (_Cora Kneeling at the Feet of Tamenund_, 1827), and it reflects the awe in the face of nature that characterized American environmental thought at the time.

I wish I had encountered Cooper's work earlier. _The Pioneers_ is still on my shelf, waiting for me. The subtitle "A Descriptive Tale" still puts me off a bit, but now that I have had a glimpse of Cooper's world I feel like revisiting it soon. I will definitely not wait until the next hurricane to read "the first American novel."

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!

The Last of the Mohicans is a book that was widely acclaimed during James Fenimore Cooper’s lifetime, as well as the many generations that have since followed.

The good: Cooper knows how to write an excellent storyline. Three noble, iconic characters (Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas) embark on an impossible rescue mission to save two damsels in distress, captive by the dreaded Huron and Le Renard Subtil. This is a classic clash of good vs. evil; and the evils of the Huron represented by the William Henry Massacre only raises the stakes to an atmospheric level. As a reader my blood boiled as I read of the tragedies. My heart demanded for justice and for the appalling wrongs to be made right. And the setting of the mid 18th century North American wilderness could not be any more desperate—giving this novel almost magisterial potential.

The bad: I do not mind longer books, but to me the pace and elongated dialogue in Last of the Mohicans made War and Peace seem brief by comparison. Furthermore this book is emotionally draining. Chase after chase, followed by tragedy after tragedy leave the reader with little respite or reassurance to continue on. And in an attempt to avoid any real spoilers I will just say: the ending was far from satisfactory. Perhaps more literary minded individuals will say that the desperate hopelessness was the entire point of the novel which looked to shine the light on these historic times—but I was left empty.

Which is really disappointing.

Stop me if you've heard this before:

Natty Bumppo is with a male counterpart and goes looking for a man in the upstate New York woods who has two daughters that need contact. Additionally a dramatic scenario ensues where the man with the two daughters needs to be rescued after being surrounded, particularly in a placement surrounded by water. A male counterpart (never Hawkeye/ Natty Bumppo) falls in love with one of the women involved and throws all his effort into obtaining her heart. Someone gets captured and multiple parties tries to pursuade the Huron tribe to release the prisoner(s) through some sort of field day activities before ultimately resorting to combat. The Hurons debate a minute too long, leading a folly. One or both of the female parties tries to intervene to aid in the release of the prisoner(s).

If you thought I was referring to Deerslayer, I wouldn't blame you. If you were suspecting I was referring to Last of the Mohicans, you may be correct too. What I'm trying to say is that James Fenimore Cooper has double-dipped with this story structure. Despite Last of the Mohicans being written a decade prior to Deerslayer, Cooper clearly poached concepts for his prequel, Deerslayer. Unfortunately he never developed any sense of characters wanting something.

I don't understand what the big deal is about this book. I certainly would never consider this a classic. The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 records the slaughter of the surrendered British forces of William Henry during the French and Indian War by the Huron tribe who supported the French commander Montcalm. It also follows the trials and tribulations of Cooper's frontier hero, Natty Bumppo/ Deerslayer/ Hawkeye/ Long Rifle/ La Longue Carabine, as well as his Mohican sidekick, Chingachgook. Tagging along is Chingachgook's son, Uncas. They pursue the seemingly neverending agitation of the Huron chief Magua/ La Renard Subtil. Magua is one of the few rich characters created by Cooper across the Leatherstocking Tales.

This story lacks clarity regarding geography. Footnotes of this book indicate the story takes place on the 42nd parallel. Without clarity, this story could take place along the northern border of Pennsylvania (which is demarcated by the 42nd parallel). The Adirondack region, where Lake George resides, particularly Fort William Henry, is closer to the 43rd parallel. It means the difference as to whether the plot takes place south of the Catskill region in New York or the Albany area.

Some of the redeeming characteristics of Cooper's writing are a struggle to locate. There are multiple portions of the book where the reader is asking what the significance is. Strangely, Cooper's recording of confrontation is fairly gripping and enjoyable. One just needs to get through the ridiculous amounts of fluff to get there.

Cooper's character, Bumppo continues with his asexual attitude towards the frontier. He still pursues adventures with his buddy Chingachgook by taking on adventures that always seem to be somebody else's. While this story is a tolerable read regarding a small portion of the year 1757, there were probably other things going on during that year in the colonies. To say this fully encompasses the whole year of 1757 is a misnomer.

One strange side effect reading The Last of the Mohicans is how quickly the pages flew by. Despite being bored in many areas and exhaling loudly whenever Hawkeye begins to preach, the book was read through fairly quickly, signifying a relatively focused read. Unfortunately Cooper's constant grab toward a predictable story line interferes with the enjoyment of the storyline. And with Cooper's 'Bumppo Logic' on the frontier, one can conclude Hawkeye is a superhero. After the neverending experiences of Bumppo proving his invincibilty, one can conclude he is a figment of any imagination. The sooner the reader recognizes that, the sooner s/he can acknowledge this is a study in the fantastical, not historical fiction.

In a situation like this one, the review isn't as much for the book content as it is for the presentation. You probably already know what The Last of the Mohicans is if you're looking at this book. You could have chosen to buy the cheap paperback version if all you wanted to do is read it again. The reason you're looking at this is that you want a high-quality, collector's item either for your own library or as a gift for someone.

The leatherwork is quite nice. The golden arrows on the front cover are all embossed in. The spine has raised ridges with the author's name, the title, and more arrowheads. The back also has full arrowheads. All three edges of paper are a shiny, lush gold color.

The front and back papers are a ridged, textured salmon fabric. Then the book is full of full color illustrations. They help to bring the story to life.

It has a built-in salmon bookmark ribbon.

I have more photos of this - I'll try to attach them to this review. All in all, a great collection to a library.

For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss.

Last of the Mohicans is one of my favorite movies, starring Daniel Day Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. While this novel features the same time frame (French and Indian War), the same geography (New York/Canadian border) and the same characters (with the addition of David Gamut, who did not appear in the movie), much of the action, plot and story lines differ significantly.

James Fenimore Cooper, the author of Last of the Mohicans and several others of the same genre, came under fairly scathing criticism from none other than Mark Twain, concerning both his style and the contents of his tales. Certainly, Cooper was somewhat wordy, and imbued his heroes with outlandish talents and skills, but not to the detriment of the story, in my opinion.

The hero of this novel, and the others in the Leatherstocking series, is known variously as Hawkeye, the Long Rifle or the Scout, an American who has been raised by a Mohican chief, Chingachgook, and his son, Uncas (last of the Mohicans). Hawkeye is the quintessential frontier woodsman, well versed in all of the skills possessed by the natives, but imbued with all of the intelligence, morality and virtues of his race. Some have criticized Cooper for his stereotypical portrayal of the Native Americans (the Delaware as noble savages, the Huron as simply bloodthirsty beasts), but this falls within the common critical failing of attributing current societal norms and mores to historical personages.

In any event, Hawkeye and his Mohicans befriend an English officer charged with transporting two English maidens to an English fort on Lake Champlain. The English have been betrayed by their Huron guide (Magua). The balance of the novel entails the effort to rescue the women from their Huron captors with the aid of the friendly Delaware tribe. Much woodscraft, skill in battle and Indian practices and beliefs are contained within the story.

While I much preferred the movie to the novel, having much to do with the striking visuals provided by the former, I cannot overly fault the latter and found it to be entertaining taken as a whole. Taking it for what it is, an early-19th century look at the French and Indian War, the reader could do far worse than this classic work.

The great classic written in the 1840s set the standard for stereotypes: the blond helpless innocent woman, the fearless young hero, the wise elders, the odd one whose simplicity shields him, among other, the evil intending villain The real main character in not Hawk-eye the stoic, good-guy killer, nor
Duncan the scout, nor Unca the handsome, brave youth; but the wilderness of the Lake Champlain area
at the time of the French-Indian War. Almost every page is filled with description of forests, cataracts, hidden caves, animal life, mountains, and skies changing the wooded colors through the seasons.

The plot is full of hostile Indians, kidnapping, battles and ambush, deceit and sacrifice. Styles of fighting or trapping or imprisoning the captured are described. The reader is exposed to religion and ritual of both Indian factions and English/American peoples. The humanity—dignity, respect, and honor are described for both sides of hostile groups. The fact that white fights white and Native Indians fight Native Indians gives a realistic picture rather than good vs. bad. It is not a happy ending that we like, but the reality that good people, even innocent people get killed. It certainly set the pace for action and interpretation of fighting in the wilderness.

If you've never read the Last of the Mohicans, you should, especially if you saw the movie because if you saw the movie and think you got the real story from it, you didn't. And if you haven't seen the movie, that's something else you should probably do. It has nearly everything the book has and more, including some haunting music and an unforgettable Wes Studi as the bad Indian, Magua. The movie has it all, except for the only thing that matters and best you stop here if you've never read the book and think you might, someday.

The Delaware, aka the Lenni Lenape Indians, (the Mohicans were a branch of the Delaware,) had the misfortune of living on the east coast of North America. That was actually a good thing. Living on the coast meant there was an abundance of food, or at least more food than most anywhere else, surf and turf with the forests on one side, the ocean on the other. But the Delawares' geography wasn't such a good thing when the big ships full of white people came sailing in. In the almost three-centuries-long rollback of the Indians from the east coast through the interior, the Delaware were one of the first tribes to be decimated (more by disease than war.) By the time of the French and Indian war (1756-1763, the setting of the book, in upstate New York,) the once mighty Delaware are a shadow of themselves while their traditional enemies, the Iroquois and Huron, situated farther inland, remain powerful.

All that remains of the Delaware are some few wandering bands and two magnificent chiefs, the father and son team of Chingachgook and Uncas, descendants from a long line of Mohican chiefs. Together, they are the Last of the Mohicans.

It's a simple story - there's a fort at the south end of Lake George, William Henry, and following a siege and a massacre of innocents, Magua kidnaps the two beautiful Munro girls, Cora and Alice, and heads off to the Canadian wilds and with the Mohicans and their friend, the scout, in pursuit and what follows is adventure, and what an adventure!

Except not everyone thinks so.

The Last of the Mohicans, more popular in Europe than America when it was published (1826) has had more than a hundred years of bad publicity. Roger Ebert deemed it unreadable, Mark Twain wrote a scathing appraisal of Cooper's entire body of work, particularly The Leatherstocking Tales. (The Last of the Mohicans is book 2 of the 5 book series.) Some of what Twain wrote is amusing but there is an underlying snarkiness to Twain on Cooper, a meanness, and an unfairness too. Cooper writing in the first half of the nineteenth century, was part of the Romantic Movement in literature. Twain was a Realist, part of the late-century reaction to the Romantics. The Realists looked back with disdain on their predecessors and the unfairness was the Realists judging the Romantics according to their (the Realists',) standards.

Not that Cooper was difficult to ridicule. His woodsies were too good to be true. Too skilled, that is.

The Mohicans and the scout are tracking Magua through the woods, using artifices like moccasin tracks and broken twigs and what do they do when the trail seems to end? They divert the course of a stream and there, in the streambed, is the moccasin track they need to continue their pursuit.

Or take the boat in The Deerslayer, Book One, of the Leatherstocking Tales. In the vast American wilderness live Tom Hutter and his daughters, on an ark big enough to have serviced Noah, back in the day. This mammoth boat is moving upstream toward Glimmerglass Lake in present day Cooperstown, (the town named for James Fennimore's dad.) There's a gang of Indians up in the canopy of trees, waiting to ambush the boat when it goes by underneath them. They jump and...miss!

Ha! Ha! said Mark Twain.

If Cooper had been around to respond to Mark Twain, he maybe could have done it not by defending his own work but by attacking Twains'.

"Huck Finn," Cooper might have said, "is a wonderful book. It's entertaining and says much about race relations in America (which is what the Last or the Mohicans does,) but hey, Mark, how about that disastrous ending to your book?" Ernest Hemingway called Huck Finn the greatest work of American fiction but cautions, nay, warns the reader to stop reading when Tom Sawyer arrives. Wow, how great must a book be, if the (arguably) greatest twentieth-century America author says so and then tells us to stop reading before we get to the end?

You might want to stop reading the Last of the Mohicans before you get to the end too but for an entirely different reason. Stop not because the ending is lousy but because your reward for finishing is a melancholy grief that may haunt you for a long time. This book, as difficult as some folks say it is, has the ability to move you like no other book. Seriously.

The tragedy, the death of the young chief, Uncas, elevates the book to its revered status as an American classic.

Why tragic?

Tragic because this young stud of an Indian, destined for great things, not to bring back the glory of his people, it's too late for that, but to remind people of what had used to be, is cut down just as he steps out onto the pages. It's as if he lived for just one single, glorious summer, a brilliant shooting star, more of an ideal than a reality.

Tragic because it is a beautiful poignant representation of some much greater loss and because of the real love story of the book, the story the movie neglects, the affection of the veteran woodsies, Chingachgook and Hawkeye for their protégé and for our own feelings for the loss, and the ache we feel for the two older men. Those two are burdened with having to carry on for another fifty years and through three more books, all the while grieving for the young Mohican chief, who was the glory of his nation and of his race.

When Cooper first published his book, he was inundated with angry letters from America and abroad. How dare he dispatch that fine young prince of an Indian! That ultimate noble savage! In some of the letters, readers beg and demand Cooper bring back Uncas. Alas, Cooper understood what those irate (and disconsolate) folks didn't, at least not right away, not while still in their high dudgeon. Uncas had to die. There was no place in the emerging America for the noble savage and his wilderness ways, no place for the red man and his glorious and unrestrained way of life.

It pains me that too few readers give this book 5 stars. It is a classic, and historically the first great American epic. It will be taught and read and made into other media (sometimes sadly distorted) over and over again for a while at least. And despite the ample criticisms of Mark Twain, it was wonderful writing for its time, though no doubt, dated and difficult to read now in some ways as writing styles had changed even by Twain's time. Even I, revisiting two of the five novels a few years back, struggled to get through them. For you had to work harder then to read, even required to think - a far cry from most cotton candy best sellers we read today (don't get me wrong - some of which I enjoy a great deal).

Forgive me if I review the entire corpus together here. For this young man who read them decades ago - was it the '70s or '80s? I can't recall - they were magical books, particularly the three that concerned Natty's youth - Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans ("LOTM") and Pathfinder. To this day I cannot drive through upstate NY without imagining Natty and the Big Snake running through the trees or meeting at a rock they are familiar with by design after taking different paths for months. The Pioneers and The Prairie were sadder for me and of course they were intended to be so. For they deal with Natty and Chingachook as aged, changed and in some ways pathetic men. I recommend reading them in historically chronological order (The Deerslayer/LOTM/The Pathfinder/The Pioneers/The Prairie), though Cooper did not write them in that order.

There is no need with all the material and reviews out there for me to give any sort of synopsis. Natty Bumppo, or Hawkeye, as he is best known, is a legendary figure - a Daniel Boone character of sorts - who Cooper weaved into the framework of colonial days and then later, the beginning of the great expansion west. Natty's talents are, like most heroes, beyond measure. His chief talent, or gift, as he would call it, was with a rifle - it was a white man's gift according to Natty, but particularly his own too, for no other white man could match him at it. But, he excelled at the gifts to which he was raised by the Delaware Indians as well, such as tracking and living off the land. But it was not his skills that excited me alone, though they provided the action and adventure. For I have no doubt that Natty's spiritual side, even the notion that the woods were his church, and his sense of decency, were inspirational for me. Morals and our culture have changed, no doubt, but I would have it that every young boy and girl was raised on The Leatherstocking Tales rather than the Bible. I am not asking for much as few American children ever really read the Bible at all. I'm not sure how many read Cooper.

There is much, of course, in the tales, that are a product of Cooper's time. Deep is the stereotyping of both whites and Indians, men and women. But, that being true, the men at least were not of a type, nor were men of any race all the same. Chingachgook, Uncas and Magua all differ from one another as do Monro, Heyward and Hawkeye.

Hawkeye was a hero of epic dimensions, but far more realistic than modern action heroes, who have almost no flaws except of the type which are seen as plusses, like impulsiveness or a titanic temper. Far from every beautiful woman falling into bed with Natty as do descendants of James Bond, he did not get the girl - ever. In LOTM he passes on a relationship with the much younger Cora Monro (yes, very much unlike the Daniel Day Lewis movie) and himself loses out on the great love of his life, Mabel Dunham, who, though, was about as young and quite akin in personality to Cora Munro in most every way. One of the most wistful moments in all the books I have read in my life (and, that is many) is when an older Natty catches sight of Mabel with her family.

Each of the novels are entire unto themselves in plot and resolution. But all form a chain. The Last of the Mohicans has perhaps deservedly been promoted over the other adventures. But, it was not my favorite. That was Pathfinder first and Deerslayer second. I would give all three five stars and the other two books, four.

Though members of any sex can enjoy the books, I would be surprised, given how we are raised and the nature of the books, if more young men did not enjoy them more than young women. But, I would not hesitate to suggest anyone read them. Enjoy.

This old beat-up paperback had been collecting dust in my little library for several years before I recently read it in order to help my son with his book report on the story. Although I ended up having to look up many more words that I usually do (as it was written in the early 1800s), and I am not normally a fan of historical fiction, I totally loved it because of the nearly non-stop action, good character development (and characters) and historical content. Nathaniel Bumppo, known as Hawkeye by his friends (also known as La Longue Carabine), who has spent the past 30 years out in the woods living with a couple of Mohicans, a chief named Chingachook and his son Uncas encounter: a party of two British men (Duncan Heyward and David Gamut); two young ladies (Cora and Alice, daughters of British General Munro who they are planning to visit); and a Huron scout (named Magua). Hawkeye is smart enough to realize (and share) the fact that their guide is likely leading them into a trap. What follows is a somewhat complicated but amazing story involving Magua's desire to take Cora as his wife, Cora’s determination to keep her younger sister safe from harm, and the five men working together to avoid capture of the women and themselves. The massacre of 1757, which takes place about mid-book, is, let’s just say, not for the squeamish. The plotting required to put together such a convoluted, but believable tale involving battles, captures, escapes, relationships between the French, British and Indians and that of about a dozen major characters is really, really good. I plopped down and read the story, which I thought would be slow-going, in a couple of days. And loved every minute of it (though I had to read slowly through some kind of confusing parts). With its violent, climactic ending, the story is not for the faint of heart, but overall (and keeping in mind the time period in which it was written), The Last of the Mohicans is an excellent story, well-written and engaging--everything a reader wants in historical fiction. Also good: The Bone People by Keri Hulme, The Roundhouse by Louise Erdich and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie.

This book was on my list to read for two reasons: 1) it is regarded as an American classic. 2) The movie with Daniel Day Lewis is one of my all-time favorites.

Let me say that I do not like novels that are written in poetic style. They wear me out with their attempts to find great meaning and their heavy prose and many words are way too wearisome for my tastes. Once I was into the book, I saw that this was the delivery method. The plot was full of action, deep characterizations, and great historical and cultural detail of an emerging nation. I found that nearly every chapter was opened with a Shakespearean quote, of which I rolled my eyes and concluded that Shakespeare must have been one that Cooper must have been trying to emulate. But still, there was much in this book that was likable. The author kept the tension going into the plot, and endangered the characters at every turn. There were no subplots at all. You followed the story as it occurred and you had to live in the moment, for nothing else was going on. The villain, Magua, was indeed villainous, full of hate, revenge and plotting. The heroes, Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas were courageous, self-sacrificing, and honest.

This novel was set in 1757 century New York state, where Hawkeye, a white scout, Chingachgook, and Uncas, Delaware Mohicans were traveling with Major Hayword and Colonel Munro’s two daughters, to deliver them safely to the aging British officer at the fort. Their guide, a Huron named Magua, has plans of his own to deliver them to the Hurons to exact his revenge for an old slight he received from Munro. Hawkeye and Chingachgook don’t trust Magua and attempt to capture him, when Magua is wounded and runs off. The party arrive at the fort, to find it under siege by the French Marquis Montcalm. With no reinformcements in sight, Munro reluctantly surrenders, with amicable concessions from the French, but none from the Hurons. As soon as the English strike their colors and march off, the Hurons butcher the departing soldiers, women and children, save for Munro, Hawkeye and his two Delaware friends, who were busy entreating the French to stop the Hurons. Munro’s two girls were captured by Magua who want to make the dark-haired Cora his wife as a revenge against Munro for submitting him to a harsh corporal punishment years ago. The rest of the book is about the scout and his two Delaware friends, along with Major Hayword, pursuing the two girls and trying to affect their release.

One criticism—Hawkeye disdained the value of reading books and writing, but often broke into long poetic ramblings, often using words that were about his self-admitted education level. I really wanted him to be the strong-silent type, as the characterization of him in the movie. There were two awfully unbelievable scenes: 1) Chingachgook disguises himself in a beaver skin and fools the Hurons. 2) Hawkeye disguises himself in a bear skin and fools the Hurons. Both insulted my intelligence.

Also it seems that Hawkeye sees the world, both white and Indian with so many stereotypes.

On a positive note: The funeral of Cora and Uncas was a place where deep poetic thought was needed, and welcome. Something about eulogizing a loved one calls for deep meaning to express grief, and this was done eloquently.

I give this book 4/5 stars. If it was rewritten in a more modern, less poetic style, and given Hawkeye a more believable personality for his character, I would have easily given it 5 stars.

Have you ever seen a movie and wondered if the book it was based on was as good as the movie? Well, that's pretty much why I read "The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper.

This novel is a classic, true; but it is written in the overly turgid, stilted language that was popular at the time it was first released, and may be somewhat burdensome to contemporary readers.

Need an example? Here, try to decipher this: "At each change in the evolutions of the latter, the former raised his tall person in the stirrups; producing, in this matter, by the undue elongation of his legs, such sudden growths and diminishings of the stature as baffled every conjecture that might be made as to his dimensions." That sentence, from Chapter II, describes the character David Gamut, a psalmodist, as he rode a horse, attempting to catch up with the party of Cora and Alice Munro. No, he was not featured in the movie, at least not in the 1992 version which starred Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Wes Studi. And if you want to know what a psalmodist was, you'll just have to read the book (or look it up). Gamut was actually one of my favorite characters, and the source of most of the humor contained in the text.

In fact, the novel, first published in 1826, is a good bit different in plot and characters from the 1992 film. It has been noted elsewhere that the 1992 film was based heavily on an earlier film released in 1936, and not so much on the book. Most movie critics which I have read found the film to be more entertaining than the book.

As an exercise in reading an American classic, however, the book is worth the time it takes to read it. Although the language is, at times, difficult to follow, it does give the reader an appreciation of what our ancestors found to be "can't-put-it-down" reading. The book is also a window, of sorts, through which we may look to a time in our nation's earliest years. Although it may be subject to some historical criticism, it is at least a popular (at the time) rendition of how American culture viewed its recent conflicts with the French and Native Americans.

If you have to read this book as a school assignment, you should not watch the movie (any of them) first. Your appreciation of the book will be keener for waiting on the film, and you will enjoy the film more for the waiting.

Note: This review was originally posted to the Penguin Classics edition of this work, but for some reason, the review did not include the correct title. I have reposted to this edition in order that my review might be more helpful (can't help if can't be found). The Penguin Popular Classics version included an informative forward and footnotes which helped in putting this novel into somewhat better context.

As a final note, the fictional Chingachgook was not actually the "last of the Mohicans." There are Mohican bands in existence today, and the Tribe is federally recognized. Chingachgook can more accurately be characterized as the last in an old line of Mohican nobility, as envisioned by the author.

The Last of the Mohicans takes place in New York state in 1757, during the French and Indian Wars. A troop of British colonials, led by the young Major Duncan Hayward, travels through the wilderness on their way to Fort William Henry. Accompanying the soldiers are Cora and Alice Munro, the daughters of the general who presides at the fort. By happenstance they encounter the frontiersman known as Hawkeye, his Indian companion Chingachgook, and the latter's son Uncas. Hawkeye informs the party that their Indian guide, Magua, has been leading them astray, and that he is a member of the Huron tribe who is friendly with the French. Magua escapes, but later returns with a band of Indians who take the two women captive, along with Hayward and David Gamut, a teacher of religious singing who seems to exist in the book only to serve as the Christian antithesis of the stoic Hawkeye. The only hope these four prisoners have for salvation is that Hawkeye and his Indian companions will rescue them from the clutches of their hostile captors.

The settlement and founding of America is such a fascinating period in history, and James Fenimore Cooper brings it vividly to life. Like his idol Sir Walter Scott, Cooper combined his own experiences of the region and its inhabitants with extensive historical research to create a romanticized version of his country's past. I have read other works by Cooper (The Spy, The Deerslayer), and found his plotting to be too meandering and haphazard in its construction. The Last of the Mohicans, on the contrary, is expertly paced, with frequent moments of intense action and suspense punctuated by interludes of more quiet contemplation. The story is captivating from beginning to end, with the exception of a couple incongruous scenes in which characters don disguises that challenge the reader's belief. Despite these low points, Cooper's writing is beautiful throughout. He describes the Adirondack wilderness with the keen observation and lyrical expression of a Thoreau. His depiction of the Native Americans in the book may not be entirely accurate, but he is always very respectful toward them. He has a tendency to portray the Indians as being too cold in their demeanor and too reliant on superstition, though never so much as to the point where his characterizations become insulting. He exhibits great reverence for the land and the traditions of its native inhabitants.

If there's an obstacle preventing today's readers from tackling The Last of the Mohicans, it's the language. While the text does not contain a great deal of archaic words, the sentences are constructed with the complex, convoluted syntax of a bygone era. Everyone in the book, from the highest general to the lowliest fur trapper, speaks with the poetic voice of a Lord Byron. A dictionary is not required, but every sentence does require some thought. After a while Cooper's narrative voice grows on you, and you'll come to enjoy the antiquated cadence of his prose. There is a dignity and a gravitas to the language that no longer exists in contemporary literature. Reading The Last of the Mohicans takes you back to a now forgotten time when those who wrote books were smarter than you, and they intended every work to be a masterpiece. To that end Cooper was largely successful. Almost two centuries after its publication this novel still provides a vital and invigorating reading experience.

Set during the French and Indian War, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS follows Cooper's renowned hero Natty Bumpo (known here at "Hawkeye" or "the scout") on an adventure to rescue a couple of well-bred daughters of America from a hostile Indian tribe and their treacherous leader Magua (or Renard Subtil). Compared to Cooper's other work, this one is a non-stop thrill ride, with plenty of intense and fast-paced action mingled in with his usual overly-verbose descriptive style. Because of that, this is my favorite of James Fenimore Cooper's novels, and I'd recommend it for any reader.

As a piece of historical fiction, this one again stands out as being superior to his other works. With the focal point of the setting being around the armies and officers of the French and British empires right smack in the middle of the French and Indian War (or Seven Years War if you're not from America), this story is grounded in a well-known historical perspective. Some of the events related in this novel also have strong backing in historical facts. From the individual battles described to the extremely messy and downright horrifying massacre after the surrender of General Munro to the French, Cooper's tale is based on real life occurrences.

Refreshingly, Cooper doesn't shy from portraying the Native Americans in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS in a less than flattering manner. While described as complex and admirable in some instances, in others the Indians here are brutal, crazy, and downright savage. Even the "good Indians" here, in Chingachkook and Uncas, don't fail to retrieve the occasionally scalp when the opportunity presents itself. The strangeness and brutal-seeming practices of many Native American tribes are well-known historical facts, and it is nice to read a book that doesn't sugar-coat or justify Indian practices for the sake of political correctness.

While its not the easiest book in the world, this one should be enjoyable for nearly every type of reader. Highly recommended.

In the old fashioned manner, each chapter of this novel written in 1825 is introduced with a quotation from another work, often by Shakespeare. In general, the writing style is quite formal and flowery, actually outright verbose. This makes it rather laborious to read and strikes a vivid contrast with the relative simplicity of the plot and of the characters. These, in a very confusing way, are often given many names. For example, the same person is called Natty Bumppo, Hawkeye, Oeil de Faucon and La Longue Carabine, all within a few paragraphs.

There are definite incongruities in the plot. Beaver huts for instance are mistaken for a human settlement and a man disguised as a bear actually fools Indians who of course have lived in the woods all their lives! There are also anachronisms, such as referring constantly to the Canadas in the plural, whereas in 1757, when the novel is set, before the British Conquest, there was of course only one.

This book's interest lies mainly with its North American setting and the fact it was one of the earliest novels to be written here. To the author's credit, it must be pointed out that he displays much respect for the Indians' wisdom and way of life, in marked contrast with general opinion later in the 19th century.

Still, its qualities are not enough to make this work truly of major interest today.

This is a copy/paste from my Goodreads.com review. Please see some of my other reviews too!
First, watch the movie before you read this book. In attempting to picture Hawkeye, can't go wrong with Daniel Day-Lewis. Cooper's flowery narrative and awful dialogue is hard enough for any good reader to wade through. Nevertheless, this is still an important book to read. The character of Hawkeye is one of the earliest incarnations of such heroes as Daniel Boone and The Lone Ranger. The only reason I found to keep turning pages was the anticipation of Hawkeye always arriving in the nick of time with his trusty Red Ryder to save the day. He is the most developed character in the book.
There's also unintentional comedy with the character of David Gamut who was written out of the movie because the man can't ride a horse to save his life. Hawkeye frequently comments on his desire to take the psalmists pitch pipe and shove it down his throat. By the last half of the book I was starting to wish someone would put the poor man out of his misery.
The two female characters are the second reason to read the book. If you've seen the movie, be prepared to be disappointed. No hanky panky for Hawkeye, he has respect for the "gentle sex" but he's asexual. Alice gets more action with her love interest. Magua, the bad guy, comes off as the coolest character in the book. He'll have Cora to do his wigwam cooking and gardening or die trying. The Indians show such distain for women, the greatest insult they can think of is calling another man a weak female. I suspect feminists aren't protesting against the reading of this book because you can't fight a classic.
As classics go, this is not a stand out. I got more out of the Cliff's Notes.

Personally, I did not enjoy this book. It's not that I'm incapable of reading it, but rather that reading it required much more effort than I care to expend. The long, flowery style of writing in which a prodigious number of words are used to say the simplest thing - it got on my nerves. Truth be told, I assigned this book for reading by my high school English class. It's a mixed group of students from ages 13-17. All but one hated it. I was forever fielding text messages from students telling me they could not discern the plot. They didn't understand what was going on. The vocabulary and lengthy sentence structure made the book beyond their frustration level. We completed fourteen literature units this year, and this was the first one I received any complaints about at all. In the end, I decided to give them a bit of a gift. We stopped reading the novel and wrote essays critiquing the author's writing style instead. Of course, I did take time to go through a few pages and show them how to "translate" the story back to themselves, and I pointed out they WILL need to build stamina in deciphering long, boring texts for college (Melville, Hemingway, Joyce, etc.). There IS value in reading difficult books. Perhaps if we had read it earlier in the year when we were still excited about school, we would have trudged on. Here toward the end of the year, especially after Spring Break, it was just not working for us. Along with our writing style critique, we looked at Mark Twain's sarcastic critique of Cooper's writing in the essay "Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." In it, he mostly wrote in response to The Deerslayer, but his criticisms, though full of hyperbole, seemed well deserved in the opinion of most of my students. At least that assignment set us up well for our last book of the year, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I have been looking for a reliable but inexpensive Kindle copy of "The Last of the Mohicans", as I want to leave my hardcover copy (with Wyeth's illustrations) at home when I travel through the Lake George, NY area this summer (scene of the action in this novel). I would prefer an annotated edition to clarify some of the historical connections with the novel, or to explain things that Cooper's contemporaries would have known but people in 2014 might not.
I did not get past the introduction to this book, which is not in English, even though using words found in English dictionaries. To state it more plainly, it is incoherent. A random sentence from the introduction, with punctuation intact: "Despite many complaints , especially from Mark Twain and later critics , on the style of Cooper, plots, structure, characterization, and dialogue, skin Tales restocking continue reading, both the United States and many foreign countries, and seem assured of a long life ahead." Though Mark Twain railed against the literary crimes of James Fenimore Cooper (http://www.the store.com/Fenimore-Coopers-Literary-Offences-Twain-ebook/dp/B00846RMC6/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1), even Twain could not blame Cooper for that sentence (and many more like it). The publisher is in Germany, and perhaps the intro is just a bad translation, but it doesn't even read like a translation from German.

I'm not one for historical novels, fact or Non-Fiction, but I had a vintage copy of Last of the Mohicans. It's a Classic, I was an English Major in college, so I HAD to read it.

Although the storyline isn't something I particularly enjoy/enjoyed, there were passages where the language was absolutely beautiful. Not many authors describe the most basic of actions so poetically, so it is always refreshing and peaceful to read Classics in-between my normal reads.

The book as a whole has so much hidden meaning and wisdom in it; James Fenimore Cooper was clearly progressive way beyond his years.

History buffs–read it! Classic-novel lovers–read it!

This is a classic and it's 'supposed' to be extraordinarily good. Well, can't say as how the story wasn't a good one. Thing is, the language was sometimes hard to follow. You really have to concentrate hard to catch the author's drift at times because he tends to digress a lot. I love Native American history so much that I just wanted to have a read through one of the classics to see what more I could learn. But you know what?? I learnt more from modern authors than I did this classic. All in all it was a good read though. The movie, starring Daniel Day Lewis, is also good, though it's not faithful to the novel.

About 2/3 of the way through this novel I really began to question how it survived enough in popularity to make it to hollywood. Although I never saw the movie I understand that many things were changed, this explains a lot.

I enjoy stories of epic proportion so I became interested in The Leatherstocking Tales. I tried to delay gratification and started with The Deerslayer before going to The Last of the Mohicans. I became aware that The Deerslayer was deeply inferior to The Last of the Mohicans through various reviews and opinions. To my surprise I really enjoyed The Deerslayer. So I thought The Last of the Mohicans would be amazing. Well it kind of fell short for me.

I don't need to reiterate how wordy Cooper can be. His prose is thick and ornamented. It's no surprise that each chapter begins with a quote from Shakespeare. He writes in a similar old fashioned way and it was as if he wanted to say that as an author he was able to continue the famed European tradition in an American setting. As a classical music fan I'm also aware of how American composers would struggle to shed their compositions of European traditions and find their American voices.

The story had it's moments and anyone with a pulse can appreciate the operatic endings of both The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans. But Cooper takes us on a long adventure of uneventfulness to get us to a very small bit of excitement.

I have no regrets reading these first two books and perhaps someday will continue the series. But I found my interest really wandering towards the last 1/3 of this book and just wanting to finish it so I could move on to other things. Be your own judge. Clearly opinions of this book are high.

Nathanial Bumppo, otherwise known as Leatherstocking, Deerslayer, and Long Rifle, is without a doubt the quintessential American version of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan. To be sure, Cooper's frontier character saw print long before Burrough's creation did in 1912. This in no way invalidates the creation of ERB, but it does give more literary impact to a wholly American character who appears in what can only be defined, if one is truthful, as wholly flawed novels.

The five novels which feature Bumppo were written by Cooper out of sequence. This doesn't necessarily impair the fictive underpinnings of the stories themselves, but it does give rise to certain elements which writhe like a murky thread throughout the main arc.

We will, as expected, consider the best known, at least as far as the general public goes, work of Cooper, that being "The Last of the Mohicans" and examine just what makes this novel tick, and why you should read it.

Cooper believed that Indian culture must needs be crushed by the Anglo Saxon wheels of religion and technology. He saw no other way around this inevitability. Though he wasn't himself racist by the definitions which we adhere to today, he did have certain beliefs of superiority of his own culture which "dark-skinned" individuals had to bow down to. "Mohicans", with its poignant idea that there will come a time the "last" of this noble race will pass from the ken of men (that is to say the ken of White Men), has through this very self-same literary device carved for itself a spot of prominence withing American literature.

Not everyone liked Cooper's work. He was always viewed much more favorably in Europe than by home-grown American authors. Mark Twain famously savaged Cooper's work and the savagery resonates even to this day. Yet, something about the novels, especially "Mohicans" endures. Perhaps it is the idea of a race of men passing, the thread of virgin forests and pure lakes, the savagery of life on the frontier, the fog of war, the blood-curdling violence. Whatever the reason for its longevity, and Twain notwithstanding, this book endures. Thank God.

As one might expect there is very little of this book that is recognizable in the 1992 film remake of the same name. In fact, the film stole much of the story line which was rewritten in the 1920 silent film. In the modern film Hawk-eye, at the height of his powers, is taciturn to a fault but still capable of a normal sexual relationship. In the novel Natty Bumppo is not only naive sexually, he won't shut up, period. He discourses on everything, even to the halt of the action being described around him. Leaning on his rifle he has no problem detailing, to exhaustion, his opinion on events around him.

Another big difference, aside from the often awkward descriptions, stereotypes of women and just plain ignorance of Native American ethnicities, is the fact a major character dies in the novel yet is allowed to survive in film. I suppose this would come as a shock to someone who saw the movie first, but there it is. Cooper has no problem dispatching that which, if allowed to live, would intercede in the future life of Hawk-eye. Natty Bumppo must remain pure. He must be allowed to view and accept nature as a powerful motivation than the love of another human being. It is his past, it is his destiny. He is akin to the figure of Greek tragedy in this way. He has a duty to perform and he will accomplish it, but he himself cannot lose the connection he has to the pristine land he loves and calls home.

I highly recommend this book, though the new reader must approach it with a few caveats and not a little caution. Cooper is simply not that great a writer. I am not the first to say that nor will I be the last. Many of the passages go on far too long and the long-winded philosophies of Bumppo grate. Nevertheless, there is power here, along with pathos, grandeur, and yes, love -- though it's love on Bumppo's, and Cooper's, own terms.

Despite its many flaws this is a major American novel by any definition. If you like adventure, and don't mind a little (okay, a lot) lagging, I think you will enjoy reading "The Last of the Mohicans."

I read this book with my 8 year-old son. I do think it is necessary to read a book like this with your kid as some words and expressions will need clarification, plus it's always good to have a little discussion about the text. Most everyone knows about this famous book (which of course is greatly edited for kids in this edition) so I will not say anything about the story, except for the fact that the Iroquois are frequently referred to as savages. I explained to my son about the use of this word (the word itself he doesn't fully understand) and that the Iroquois did not see themselves this way, but this was how their enemies viewed them. Of course, at this age, most kids don't really understand these distinctions but it's good to get them thinking nonetheless. For those only familiar with the 1992 movie, the book is quite different. The chapters are about 7-8 pages each which makes it convenient to read one chapter each night and have a little discussion.

If familiarity does indeed breed contempt, then perhaps that explains why my opinion of Cooper's most famous novel has weakened over time. I recently reread the book after an interval of many years; not only was I disappointed (and somewhat bored), but I realized that it has become my least favorite of the five Leatherstocking novels.

In "Last of the Mohicans," Cooper aimed brazenly for a melodramatic adventure story in the Romantic tradition of the novels of Walter Scott. Reading it as an adult, the farcical caricatures that delighted me as a boy made me cringe at times, almost with embarrassment. (In particular, the psalmist named David Gamut is Cooper's Jar Jar Binks.) And the overwrought dialogue can be cumbersome and even unintentionally comical; only Natty ("Hawk-eye") Bumppo would deliver a 300-word speech to hush his compatriots in order to avoid the imminent risk of a possible ambush.

Several things save the novel from its maudlin prose, and they alone justify its status as a "classic." First is the unexpected depth of the portrayal of Cora. By modern standards, her character is stereotypically feminine, but she is a pioneering heroine whose depiction violates nearly every preconception of the era. A second aspect is the unhesitant and (for its time) graphic horror with which Cooper depicts hand-to-hand combat; the shocking episode that opens the massacre of the garrison still has the ability to give me nightmares. And, finally, there is Cooper's decidedly "unromantic" willingness to surprise the reader by killing off major characters with startling (and believable) twists in the plot. Set aside the cartoonish characters, the overstylized prose, the speechifying dialogue--the story alone is worth the read.

So it's not a bad book by any means, and opinions will depend on taste. I prefer the character-driven narratives and the almost pastoral mood of "The Pioneers" or "The Prairie," which at times seem to anticipate the survivalist novels of Willa Cather. For those who prefer the swashbuckling action of "Ivanhoe," however, this is the book.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) is sometimes called the "American Scott". Like Sir Walter Scott who romanticized the Scottish past, Cooper focused readers attentions to the the American frontier. His most famous works are the Leatherstocking tales featuring Natty Bumpo. The novels in the series include: The Deerslayer; "The Pathfinder"; "The Last of the Mohicans"; "The Pioneers" and "The Prarie." The most famous of these novels is "The Last of the Mohicans" set during the French and Indian War in North America. Natty Bumpo the hero of the tale is said to be 40 years old; he is an experienced woodsman knowledgable in fieldcraft; Indian fighting and how to survive in a brutal frontier setting in upstate New York.
The novel includes exciting fights with Indians; escapes from Indian captivity; word paintings of nature; a love story and a tale lamenting the passing of the last of the Mohicans.
The characters are:
Natty Bumpo-the intrepid scout for the British who rescues damsels in distress while escaping Indian capture. He is the hero of the novel and the Leatherstocking series.
Duncan Heyward-A brave but inexperienced British major who is love with the inspidly portrayed Alice Murno. Alice is a stick figure with no depth or character development.
Cora Munro is the sister of Alice. Both of these siblings are the daughters of British soldier Munro who is the commander at Fort William H enry. The fort is captured by the French and their Indian allies. Alice and Cora are captured and taken to an Indian village.
Chingachgook and his son Uncas. Good friends of Hawk-eye (a nickname for Natty Bumpo). Uncas is the last of the Mohicans. He is love with the dark skinned Cora.
Mauga. The evil Indian who is the major foe of the English and the friends of Hawkeye.
The novel is written in an old fashioned literary style which lends itself to slow reading for moderns. The language does not, however, get in the way of the nonstop action. The book is one of the first novels written by an American author assisting at the birth of our literary heritage. Cooper's views on Indians is not politically correct. It is worth your time and effort to become acquainted with this literary milestone.

Cooper is recognized as the father of American literature and for firmly placing America at the forefront of the literary world.

His classic tale takes place in New York state in the late 1700's set against the backdrop of it's beautiful idyllic terrain which he so vividly describes and contrasts with the complex conflicts erupting within it.

French against English. Indians against English. Indians against Indians.

The story has a simple plot consisting of a repetition of capture and escape with frequent role reversals punctuated by brief reprieves serving to build tension.

Although truly an action story, complete with a mythic hero ( Hawkeye ) who will serve as the foundation for the modern day cowboy, the tale touches on deeper issues in a subtle way.

The friction of interracial amour is personified in Uncas and Cora. Their demise perhaps reflecting the authors views on transcultural relationships.

The stereotyping of blonde women is brought into sharp focus in Alice's helplessness which seems never to leave her. Her character undergoes little development beyond a cardboard cutout set on a richly detailed stage adding to the effect. In contrast the dark haired Cora is seen to be a courageous practical woman embodying the frontierswoman.

The struggle between civilization and savagery in the frontier is continually brought out in the conflicts with Magua, although Cooper is careful to balance his character avoiding simple dichotomous categorization into evil and good . Magua is cruel spiteful and villainous from the protagonist's perspective yet we are allowed access to Magua's thoughts and realize he wishes to live a good life in his own way and earn the respect of his people. His unslaked vengeance is his ultimate downfall.

I wasnt particularly fond of the movie which is two dimensional ( literally and figuratively ) and strongly suggest reading the book.

Great story, it's a classic.
You have to get used to the writing style, the author uses 30 words where 15 would probably do.
This is the speaking style of the period and is rather poetic once you get used to it.
4 instead of 5 stars due to some lulls in the story about 3/4 of the way through. (My humble opinion.)
Phil

I first read The Last of the Mohicans in 1973 and have reread it periodically over the years. Although Mark Twain is often given credit for being the first quintessential American author, I would vote for James Fenimore Cooper. This is a magnificent book that captures the ruggedness of the American wilderness and creates the American Hero, Hawkeye- the loner who rejects the institutions and the relationships that most men need and who stand alone for what is right. This motif has been picked up in countless American heros ranging from Hammetts Sam Spade to John Wayne.
Although written in a style that may be difficult for the contemporary reader to grasp, it is, nevertheless, a beautifully written novel. Cooper has a way of describing the savage beauty of the American wilderness that is unequaled in literature. An example of this is his description of the forest swallowing up the European armies only to spit them out in ragged pieces- armies larger than those that often dispose of the scepters of the mother countries were seen to bury themselves in these forest, whence they rarely returned but in skeleton bands that were haggard with care or dejected by defeat. Raised in western Oregon and spending much of my youth in the Oregon wilderness, I know exactly what Cooper describes. There is a terrible beauty about the wilderness that both invites and destroys. It is a beauty that draws on into its inner recesses can quickly turn into terror as the weather turns foul, ones sense of direction is lost and the forest seems to close in around one fights off the feeling of terror and loneliness. It gives an rush that city folks cannot even imagine.
The story is set in the geo-political struggle between the France and England for control of colonial empires both in the Americans and India. It is a story of savagery, slaughter, betrayal and courage. Of course, this book would offend the sensibilities of politically correct. Yes, Indians are describes as savages and yes, they massacre innocent women and children. Yes, Europeans get better press; but Cooper, like Melville, addresses the race issue. Hero's and villains are been on both sides of the conflict. This is a great book and should be on your must read list of American literature.

To be honest a story about the early frontier days is not the type of story that generally draws my attention, but since this book was on several lists as one of the top 100 books ever written I gave it a chance. Unlike others on these types of lists which did not live up to the hype, this one succeeded.
You are brought into another world and given a perspective of another culture. I couldn't believe a book written at that time would contain so much graphic images. I had read books before who had characters in them which they called savages, but it was not until this book that I actually saw what savagery really was. The aftermath of the attack on Fort William Henry contains some very shocking descriptions. Indians have different morals and superstitions, and Cooper does a good job of explaining the differences while at the same time differentiating between good and evil. Bravery as always is still highly respected by all.
The story was wonderful, and the characters were memorable. There is a lot of character development. Even the villain's character of Magua grows and grows, from a mer scout to a formidable opposing chief. Cora, is a very strong female character, which to me is unique for a story written during that time period. The character of David Gamut adds some humor and an image of a free spirit who stays true to his religion, but Hawkeye the scout, Uncas the warrior and his father Chingachgook are the powerful characters that anyone would want to emulate. Heyward the young British officer comes off a little stiff, but he is very honorable.
I liked the fact that Cooper incorporated some actual real life characters into his story and gave us all a little history lesson. For instance Washington is mentioned briefly and Cooper insinuates that Washington probably learned his guerilla tactics for fighting the British during his days in the French and Indian Wars. He also mentions two other real life generals in a way which adds to the story without being accused of character defamation.
I'm not sure if I would call this a love story since it was mostly filled with battle scenes and war tactics, but there was a lot of love to go around. Even with the differences in culture there is still a similarity between the love shown between the father Munro and his daughters, (as a father of two daughters myself I felt his anguish Munro felt in worrying about the safety of his girls), and the love shown between and the Indian father Chingachgook and his son Uncas. You have a special bond of brothers between Hawkeye and Uncas, and you also have the love story between Heyward and one of Munro's daughters as well.
While I found the book to be excellent, there are three minor criticisms I will make. Every character seems to have at least three names which is confusing at times. One which is their real name, another their friends call them, and yet a third which their enemies may bestow upon them. Also I do not speak French, and there are a few discussions throughout the book in French which are not interpreted. It didn't ruin the story since I could guess what was probably said, but it was slightly annoying. Finally the book title itself gives away more of the story than I would have liked with it's foreboding.
The character Alan Alda played on the old T.V. show M.A.S.H. had always said that his favorite book was "The Last of the Mohicans" and his favorite character was Hawkeye. Now I know why.

Reading this, it's easy to see why James Fennimore Cooper is considered the first true American novelist. A comparison with the rather talky, and overly descriptive English novels of the time, shows that this is vastly different.

First, of course, this is about the exploits of the common man. Hawkeye, the main white character, is the quintessential rugged individualist, eschewing society to live in the woods and travel with his Indian companions.

Then there is the natural setting--the woods and streams and waterfalls of upstate New York, which appear almost as characters, themselves in the novel. And then, of course, there is that most American of stories, the decimation of the Indian populations.

Having not read this book since I was in grade school, I found it suprisingly enjoyable. I was also surprised to find that the true emphasis of the story was the relationship between Hawkeye, the white scout,and the Mohicans, rather than the love story cooked up for the 1991 movie, and that a love interest also exhisted between the young Mohican, Uncas, and Munro's daughter, Cora,who, expediently, turned out to be of mixed race herself.

As historical fiction, this is very accurate. And though the Indians are generally depicted,at their worst, as inhuman savages, and, at their best, as surprisingly bright and sensitive savages, for the time in which it was written, it was probably rather daring, and the most one could expect toward bridging the gap between the races.

I would definitely recommend that those who think of this as one of those classics they were forced to read in school, give it a second try. You may be pleasantly surprised.

I found the time to read Cooper's classic historical fiction tale of good vs. evil. My only struggles were with the old style English...but that was then.

Set in 1757, this is a rendering of the French and Indian War with Fort William Henry as the centerpiece. Several characters come into play such as the famed frontier scout Hawkeye along with his close Mohican Indian companions Uncas and his father Chingachgook escorting two sisters through the hostile and vulnerable environment of upper state New York.

The Huron tribe is siding with the French and trouble is lurking on every page. Their chief, Magua, is the culprit for so many of the skirmishes which ensue.

The plot has several twists and turns which does hold the reader's attention. Good adventure.
It also depicts ancient cultures folding and being manipulated by contemporary civilizations.

My daughter recommended The Last of the Mohicans because James Fenimore Cooper wrote about the Lenni-Lenape Native Americans who are also included in a novel I've written. I found the comparison interesting, but I wrote about their day to day lives at the beginning of the seventeenth century whereas Cooper wrote about their warfare in the eighteenth century, more than a hundred years later. During those years the Lenni-Lenape changed from people who had rarely met Europeans to people who were fighting for their homes and their lives. The Lenni-Lenape were friends of the English, but all the Native Americans were portrayed as warriors. It stated in the book's introduction that “In these pages, Lenni-Lenape, Lenope, Delawares, Wapanachki, and Mohicans, all mean the same people, or tribes of the same stock.”

At times I felt I had to translate Cooper's complex writing before I could understand its meaning. Here is an example:

Duncan thrust forth a foot, and the shock precipitated the eager savage headlong, many feet in advance of his intended victim. Thought itself is not quicker than was the motion with which the latter profited by the advantage; he turned, gleamed like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, and, at the next moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, and gazed around in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly leaning against a small painted post, which stood before the door of the principal lodge.

I thought his style might have been due to the time when he was writing, so I looked back at some of his contemporaries to see if I had similar issues with other work from that era. I didn't. Edgar Allen Poe didn't have that same problem in The Fall of the House of Usher nor did Herman Melville in Moby Dick, even though that book is also a slow read. Other Cooper contemporaries include Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain who wrote very clear text. Cooper was not favorably received by the critics at the time he was writing and I can understand why.

Racism is another issue with The Last of the Mohicans, something my daughter mentioned when she suggested I read the book. Here is an example of this problem:

Nothing but the color of his skin had saved the lives of Magua and the conjurer, who would have been the first victims sacrificed to his own security, had not the scout believed such an act, however congenial it might be to the nature of an Indian, utterly unworthy of one who boasted a decent from men that knew no cross of blood.

This, however, is more a product of the time when Cooper was writing and of his characters' beliefs rather than his own philosophy. In fact, in one section Colonel Munro believes that Duncan prefers his younger daughter, Alice, over his older, Cora, because Cora's mother was a mixed race woman. Cooper uses this scene to condemn racism.

The strengths of the novel are in its exciting plot and how much Cooper's work can teach us about life in early America.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions

Mark Twain took great pleasure in ridiculing Cooper's novel, gleefully pointing out plot inconsistencies, unbelievable events that led often to harder to believe conclusions, and the wooden dialog and petty philosophizing of the novel's principle character - all in an effort to prove that any way you might look at it, Copper could not, for his life, tell a tale. I think that Twain might be guilty of a bit of jealousy. Many of the faults that Twain found with Cooper can be found in his own writings, from Tom Sawyer to Huckleberry Finn; moreover, in none of Twain's work can you find the dramatic action that Cooper was able to create. Also, Twain was looking backward some fifty years and American English had undergone some major transformations, becoming less structured thus making earlier American literature, by contrast, seem formal, wordy and, to some, unreadable.

Cooper's work must be evaluated from within its own time frame to prove just how revolutionary his writings were. Shaped by the traditions of the eighteenth century English novel and influenced by his contemporary, Sir Walter Scott, Cooper continued this tradition of the romance novel - with a peculiarly unique American twist: three of the major characters of this novel were not European whites (the almost universal character model of the literature with which Cooper was acquainted), but American Indians. Althought this was quite unique, Cooper was not free from the prejudices that was prevalent at the time of the novel's writing, and despite being associated with the idea of the "noble savage", created many more ignoble Indians than he did noble ones.

The strengths of the novel are the descriptive prose that Cooper employs to paint his picture of frontier America - descriptions which, in fact, compare with some of the best nature descriptions in American literature - and the fine character development of two of his supporting characters, Magua and Cora. Twain was correct about Cooper's hero, Hawkeye - he is wooden, ignorant, and despite his close association with his two Mohican buddies, Chingachgook and Uncas, is openly santimonious about his pure "un-crossed" white blood and rails at anything that smacks of learnedness. Magua and Cora are much more complex characters.

Magua is one of the best crafted characters in early American literature. He is not the stoical Indian character type represented by Chingachgook and Uncas, but combines the bravery of the Huron warrior witht the worse habits of the white man; he is ravaged by rage and hatred, having been cast out by his own tribe and used by both the French and English for their own colonial pursuits. He comes across as a sort of native American Ahab and is not without his sympathetic side. Cora is the antithesis of her fainthearted sister, the blond Alice. She is brave, resourceful and feminine; yet never could be considered (although Hawkeye does) a member of the "gentle sex". That there is a hidden aspect to her character, that her "charged color" hints at some dark mystery only makes her more appealing as a character.

In short, Cooper did know how to tell a story, and if the contemporary reader will abate some of his biases and give the novel a chance, that reader will be not only captured by the action of the book but will realize that Cooper deserves his place as America's first novelist. Do not confuse the recent movie of the novel, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, as an honest portrayal. The screenplay, when compared to Cooper's text, seems to have been based on an entirely different novel.

For years I heard that James Fenimore Cooper was the dullest, hardest-to-read novelist of early American fiction. I ascribed that to lazy contempt from literary snobs who only knew Cooper from Mark Twain's famous takedown, an essay I thought to be ill-spirited.

Finally, I read Cooper's most famous novel, this one. Alas, reading is believing.

To call "The Last Of The Mohicans" hokey is one thing. Unfair, no doubt, because a lot of frontier fiction used it and its tropes as jumping-off points. Much like the title itself, notions such as noble redskins and twigs that crack at inopportune times have been baked into our culture to such a degree that their success should not be held against Cooper.

But "Last Of The Mohicans" has other issues. What Twain derided as a "surplusage" of words turns out very apt. Cooper creates some dramatic moments, then beats them into the ground with excess exposition, some of it unrealistically delivered by the characters themselves. When our hero Hawkeye is in the middle of a shootout with evil Hurons, he pauses to discourse on assorted topics. Likewise, Cooper's own exposition is frustratingly ever-off-point. Cooper never describes Hawkeye firing his famous rifle "Killdeer" but rather the weapon communicating its fearful, deadly report and sending off "leaden messengers" into the breasts of menacing braves.

People wrote less concisely in Cooper's time, but great writers seldom let it get in the way as Cooper does here. Important plot points get buried under tons of verbiage.

Actually, there's not much to follow in "Last Of The Mohicans." Two pretty sisters get waylaid by hostile Hurons and Hawkeye and his two Mohican friends, Chingachgook and Uncas, set off to rescue them. This is pretty much the entire plot, except that it reoccurs twice more after the pair is rescued the first time. The thin story isn't much helped by the logic-twisting contrivances Cooper foists on us, like Hawkeye gaining entrance to a hostile camp disguised as a bear or the revelation of a turtle tattoo that turns enemies into instant allies.

The novel does have some moments. A massacre at Fort William Henry which shocked readers is powerfully rendered, with Cooper's writing more effective for the way he plays it cool with the verbiage after all we have been reading up to then. He also does a solid job with the many American Indian characters, maybe because he makes them such terse speakers. Whatever the case, whether good or evil, the Indians come off as more interesting than the whites, and sometimes just rather interesting in their own right.

"None of my young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post - none of them so lightly on the Yengeese [Yankees]" one Huron chief says to a brave about to be executed for cowardice. "The enemy knows the shape of your back, but they have never seen the color of your eyes."

Cooper can be fun when he writes like this. Most of the time, though, he's aping Sir Walter Scott's worst excesses and creating prose so leaden you can almost feel it sinking into the page as you read it.

I liked the book, Last of the Mohicans. I notice that many reviewers who gave it one or two stars are kids who had to read the book for an advanced English class or who saw the movie and decided to read the book. It is NOT an easy read (which is probably why many kids did not like the book), but I thought it was worth the effort. It was a little difficult keeping the characters straight at first because Cooper has several names for the key characters and switches between them freely.

My favorite character was actually one that I would guess is an outlier - David Gamut. His manhood is often insulted by Hawkeye, (Hawkeye calls David's pitch pipe his "tooting weapon" and he pokes fun of his useless profession of psalmody) yet David's bravery is no less than the heroes of the tale. Sure he can't shoot a gun (it would be against his principles anyway), but he sticks with the sisters when they are kidnapped by Magua and is able to come and go freely among the Indians as he is viewed by them as not having all of his mental faculties. He saves Uncas' life by secretly switching places with him and tells Hawkeye not to avenge his death should he die for the ruse. His moral character is higher, I believe, than the vengeful Indians and Hawkeye. While Hawkeye tolerates or even disdains David at the beginning of the book, I think he grows to like and even admire David by the end.

The plot was interesting to me and sure some of the language is convoluted and Cooper's vocabulary is admittedly far superior to mine. However, if you keep a dictionary nearby, you'll learn several new words and enjoy an exciting tale.

Since there are already over 100 reviews of this book and probably thousands have been written over the years, I'll do this one without benefit of book in hand, from memory and without a lot of details. It took me many years to get over the antiquated language barrier and to finally read the book. The classics are always harder to read than contemporary fiction, but sometimes it's worth the effort.

What tipped the scales for me and piqued my curiosity was watching the recent movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Russell Means, and Eric Schweig, and realizing that this was a good story. Also, I'm very familiar with the setting in upstate NY: Lake George, Balston Spa, Glenns Falls, Scroon Lake, and surrounding area--at least as it is now, and it was fun imagining what it would have been like in those days, when the land was virgin, settlers could lose their scalps if they weren't careful, and the France contested with Britain for supremacy of the land.

The book wasn't a romance--at least not in the modern sense of the word--with love scenes and the like. But it was a romance in the old sense in that the three main characters; Hawk-eye, and the two Mohicans, were larger than life heroes; in the moral, physical, and spiritual meanings of the term. The elder sister Cora was also a well developed, strong willed and heroic character, which surprised me a little considering the age in which the book was written.

For me the most interesting character of the novel was Chingachgook's son, Uncas, who was the "last of the Mohicans," a noble race of American Indians, which formerly occupied the lands by the "salt lake," (i.e., the Atlantic Ocean), and were dispossessed and robbed of their lands and heritage by the original Dutch settlers and others. Uncas was a tracker extraordinaire, even better than the indomitable Hawk-eye in this respect. But he was young, inexperienced, and impetuous, which was eventually his undoing when he came up against the evil, and formidable Magua. But before he died, he was recognized as a king or great chief of his people, an heir apparent. So decreed the venerable Tamenund, a 100 year old patriarch and judge of the Delaware peoples, a related tribe to the Mohicans. This episode would have been difficult to write into an action movie, but it would have been great if it had been.

Another interesting character completely eliminated from both the 1934 and 1992 movies was David Gamut, a preacher psalmist, whose moral presence and as a comic relief, was an integral part of the novel.

All in all, this is still a book worth reading, if only to get a glimse of the way things were then and might be again.

This novel by James Cooper turned out surprisingly well. There are only two downfalls to this novel. The first is that I watched the movie. I kept expecting what happened in the movie to happen in the novel. I have to tell you, the book is much different from the movie, and the book is better. The only other negative is that I was raised and taught English in the 1990's and had some difficulty reading Cooper's style of writing. However, the imagery and detail Cooper uses far out weigh the difficulties in understanding his style. Being written in English, I could understand everything he wrote, it just took me longer to read.
As I alluded to, Cooper did a tremendous job of painting a picture in mind. I want to visit the Northeastern United States after reading about its beauty. I immediately noticed the attention he paid to detail compared to more modern authors I have read. Additionally, I feel Cooper portrayed Native Americans in positive light uncommon to his era. Rather than berating Native Americans in ignorance, he explained there ways of thinking and ceremonies. More importantly, he showed that every race has common values. Foremost of these is love. The love shared by the chief for his son, the white scout with his Indian friend, the Indian for Cora, all demonstrate that love can touch everyone. The last pages of this novel had more emotion than any I can recall.
I enjoyed reading this novel, and encourage all those who liked the movie or are looking for a good novel to read The Last of the Mohicans.

"Mohicans" has long been on my "I'll read that someday" list, and I finally found the time to read it over the last few months. And while I'm glad I did, it must be stated matter-of-factly that James Fenimore Cooper's writing style is not very kind to the reader. He tended to write some long-winded passages and descriptions, with sometimes a little too much detail, and his use of multiple names for the same character became annoying after a while. "Hawkeye," one of the main characters in the story, might also be called "the scout," "the Long Rifle," "pale-face" and some other names, all in the same paragraph! And Cooper did this with many of his characters. It's not the most effective story-telling device.

As for the story itself, I liked it very much. Set in 1757, during the Seven Years' War in America (or the French and Indian War, as it is also known), it follows the fortunes of a group of misfits caught up in the struggles between the British and French empires, as well as various Native American tribes. Strongest among these characters is Hawkeye, a white man who has nevertheless shunned living the "civilized life," and instead lives off the land, like the Native Americans. Indeed, some of his closest friends are Mohicans, probably a novel concept when this book was written in the 1820s. Whenever I was reading about Hawkeye, I couldn't help thinking of the "real" early pioneer heroes Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett; his actions and deeds evoked images of a coonskin-capped hero "saving the day" time and again, whenever duty called. Finally, although I will not mention the ending of the story, I will say it did not have the typical "Hollywood Ending," which, frankly, I was expecting. It was a pleasant surprise to find that Cooper did not fall prey to the "feel-good" story.

It was for these reasons that I give this a favorable rating, despite the random difficulties with Cooper's writing style. "Mohicans" is worth your time, but be aware you must also be patient; for long stretches this is not a page-turner.

Four stars.

Reading this, it's easy to see why James Fennimore Cooper is considered the first true American novelist. A comparison with the rather talky, and overly descriptive English novels of the time, shows that this is vastly different.

First, of course, this is about the exploits of the common man. Hawkeye, the main white character, is the quintessential rugged individualist, eschewing society to live in the woods and travel with his Indian companions.

Then there is the natural setting--the woods and streams and waterfalls of upstate New York, which appear almost as characters, themselves in the novel. And then, of course, there is that most American of stories, the decimation of the Indian populations.

Having not read this book since I was in grade school, I found it suprisingly enjoyable. I was also surprised to find that the true emphasis of the story was the relationship between Hawkeye, the white scout,and the Mohicans, rather than the love story cooked up for the 1991 movie, and that a love interest also exhisted between the young Mohican, Uncas, and Munro's daughter, Cora,who, expediently, turned out to be of mixed race herself.

As historical fiction, this is very accurate. And though the Indians are generally depicted,at their worst, as inhuman savages, and, at their best, as surprisingly bright and sensitive savages, for the time in which it was written, it was probably rather daring, and the most one could expect toward bridging the gap between the races.

I would definitely recommend that those who think of this as one of those classics they were forced to read in school, give it a second try. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Back in the early 1800s, there was a writer who lived in New York State and loved its natural beauty. He began writing a series of novels describing the life of a wilderness man - Hawkeye - and his two Mohican indian companions. The indians were father and son, Chingachgook and Uncas. The books, known as the Leatherstocking Tales, became a world-wide sensation. Set in the wilds of the 1757 French-Indian War, the stories were near enough in time that they seemed familiar, but wild enough in characters, locations and situations that people all around the world ate them up.

Because the book was one of the first created by an American about a uniquely American topic, it's often taught in literature classes - and because it's about wild "cowboys and indians" without sex or explicit violence, it's often red by young kids. How does this story hold up in modern times?

First, if you've seen any movie version, you are only seeing one eighth of the story. The book was long and dense. To cut that down to two or less hours is to cut out a TON of plot line. Much of the intricacies of the various indian tribes and their relationships to each other is lost, and usually they cut out several key characters as well.

In many ways the book is interesting and progressive for something written in the 1800s. Remember, even in the 1900s, Irish were being ostracized and native Americans were treated far worse. So back in 1826, James set his story around a Scotsman - Munro - and his two daughters, Cora and Alice. Not only that, but Cora was a quarter black - Munro had married a mixed-blood woman during his youth, then remarried a Scotswoman later to have Alice. So there are discussions where Munro strongly defends his daughter, where Hawkeye strongly defends his native friends, and where there are discussions about what a person is worth vs the color of their skin.

On the other hand, though, there are a lot of wild generalities made about native Americans. The book throws around terms such as 'barbaric' and 'devious' and 'lying' quite freely. You could say that they are the incorrect misconceptions of the main characters - but that doesn't make sense. Cora, mixed-blood herself, is quick to defend and speak up for the natives. Hawkeye certainly appreciates them. Maybe it is more like the gross generalizations made in many action-adventure movies where, for example, Indiana Jones fights off hordes of faceless "evil Arabs". You don't ask those movies to be accurate or understanding of the enemies. Maybe it's unfair to have asked this book to give accurate, well rounded descriptions of the "bad Indians". The problem is that the book became so popular, in lands where this book was their only glimpse of American Indian life, that they created very inaccurate portrayals that took a long time to dismiss.

The book was written very formally. I am generally a fast reader and can zip through books, but this one really makes you slow down and pay attention. If you like to skim books you might find this extremely troublesome. It's not just that it's an "old book" - even people back when it was written found the style difficult. You can say that it should have been written to read more smoothly - but on the other hand, it's not necessarily a bad thing to slow down and pay attention to what you are reading. Think of it as speed bumps which force you to slow down and really admire the landscape around you. I didn't find the prose style difficult at all and quite got into the hang of it.

Really, in the end, you can appreciate this book for being a high adventure novel written in the early 1800s by an American, about Americans, that opened the world's eyes to some of America's beauty. In that sense it achieved its goal quite nicely. For that reason, it's important for modern day people to read it and to understand its place in history, just like we read the Odyssey.

But it's also important to understand this is not a treatise on the actual characters and natures of the native Americans described. While James F. Cooper was familiar with the lands of New York that he describes, he had very little familiarity with the indian tribes. Many of his descriptions are misguided at best, and downright harmful and nasty at worst.

"The Last of The Mohicans" is the second in the Leatherstocking series by America's first professional novelist, James Fenimore Cooper. Set in upstate New York during the French and Indian War, it introduces the reader to the Eighteenth Century world inhabited by settlers and Indians. This work contains both continuations and similarities to "The Deerlsayer" (see my the store reivew). The Deerlsayer is now known as Hawkeye and seems to be more a man of action and less a man of words. Chingachgook remains his loyal friend, although the Indian nature is more presented by his son, Unca. As in "Deerslayer", much of the story revolves around two sisters, in this case Cora and Alice, who are making their way in the wilderness with the aid of their companions. Like in "Deerlsayer" the saga finds its action in war and chase scenes involving American settlers and their Indian allies against Indians opposed to them. This series is rare among early American literature in that the Indians display characters of their own. A bit of comedy is introduced into the narrative by the character of David Gamut, the professional psalmodist who, despite having gifts so ill-suited to the environment of the story, still manages to play a helpful role in the conflict running throughout the book.

I read this for "mood setting" during a trip to Cooperstown and other areas in which the book is set and in which the author lived. I was also interested in a familiarity with this classic of American literature. As a reader of my the store reviews is aware, I tend much more toward history than to novels and, generally, enjoy them much more. That being said, this novel is a keeper. It is an enjoyable and edifying read, even if classical novels are not your forte.

The second instalment to the five novel `Leatherstocking Tales' collection, Cooper tells the tale of a daring search and rescue mission led by uber-naturalist and Loyalist hero, Hawk-eye, in colonial America during the French and Indian War. Attended by his various sidekicks (aboriginal or otherwise), our gallant hero seeks to recover General Munro's two daughters, apparently for no other reason than it gives him something to do.

The text liberally borrows from the worst tendencies of 18th century English Literature (haughty oratorical tone, frequent character soliloquies, ridiculous emotional and romantic characterizations, constant quotations from important English writers - in this case Shakespeare). This makes for a tough read. The plot is rather lumbering at times, as well. Cooper really has no time for any significant character development; what we see from the characters in the book's early pages is what we get at the end. Some characters seemingly have little or no purpose i.e. General Munro after his daughters have been abducted; a formerly confident and assertive person instantaneously becomes a doddering old fool whose sole contribution is to infrequently mewl about the loss of his `babes.'

The exception to the book's poor use of characterization is Magua, the villainous Huron Indian. Cooper's paradoxical characterizations of this `wily Indian' often combine hatred with admiration. Cooper is never really sure what to make of him; while Magua embodies the `savage' excesses of his race, he is also extremely charismatic, and a born leader.

As this book is 180-years old, uncomfortable stereotypes and lingering racism are scattered throughout the text. Cooper's respect for aboriginal peoples really depends on which tribe he is describing. For example, when describing the eyes of Uncas, a Mohican, the narrator seemingly exclaims without irony they were beaming "with a sympathy that elevated him far above the intelligence, and advanced him probably centuries before the practices, of his nation." Cooper also demonstrates discomfort with interracial relations, particularly of the aboriginal/Caucasian kind, preferring to change the racial backgrounds of some of his characters that may catch the fancy of the culturally inferior Indians.

If nothing else, the book is a fascinating historical document that demonstrates the struggle for the formation of a unique American identity in early post-colonial times. Tendering Hawk-eye as a prototype, for Cooper, the new American is a composite of Native American, English, and colonial cultural values: brave, resourceful, judicious and cultured. While what comprises `Americanism' is certainly more complex and ambiguous, this book comprises an early contribution to the canon of American literature and unique American experiences.

I read this aloud to my 12-year-old. It can be slow (it was written in 1826, when writing was leisurely), but there are a lot of really exciting parts and there's enough blood and guts to fire the heart of any pre-teen boy. It's racist and sexist, but that's what those times were like - just make sure to point that out if your child reads it. AND, one of the main characters, Cora, is a highly unusual and awesome character, especially for that era. Cora's father Munro, the staid Scots general, had married a woman in the Caribbean who was part BLACK!! And their daughter, Cora, is by far the more admirable of his two daughters (the other, Alice, is from a different mother). Cora is strong, quick-thinking, tough, caring, bold - all the good stuff. Alice, the "all-white" daughter, is a total wuss. I love Cora's character - for the most part.

The racism that made me queasiest is when Cora is aghast at the thought of being forced to marry an Indian, not only because he's a bad guy but a lot simply because he IS an Indian. She waxes eloquent (on numerous occasions) about how she would rather die than marry an Indian. It sounds sort of appalling to modern ears but clearly that's the way they thought of native Americans in those days.

It's a long saga, but a really interesting one. If you want to supplement the book by seeing the movie, that's fine. The movie changes a lot of the plot, but it captures the feel of the book. We saw the movie when we were about a third of the way through the book. My son and I both enjoyed it, and if your child needs a visual sense of the time and environment, it's a good way to give that to him/her.

One of the things I thought was great about the book is that it takes place mostly in the Hudson River Valley. I live in NY, and have been to a lot of the areas the book talks about. Those are towns and cities and resorts today. Hard to imagine that within the memory of my grandparents' grandparents, it was terrifying WILDERNESS, filled with people who the Europeans felt no qualms about exploiting and exterminating.

Be prepared to read it at a leisurely pace, and you will be rewarded.

This review is about the Barnes and Noble version of "The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fenimore Cooper. I would have given this book five out of five stars but it was very difficult to follow. If you set aside the fact that it is difficult to follow and that the characters speak in stilted English, it is a good book. The thing I remember about "The Last of the Mohicans" was that they made a great movie out of it starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. I've always thought that since the movie was so good there must be something good about the book. I was warned after I saw the movie when I was a kid that the book was difficult to understand and now that I have read the book I know that this is true.

While the book is difficult to follow, the one thing I did like about it was that it made North America seem like a grand place of adventure.

At least once a year I like reading a "certified" classic. This year, "The Last of the Mohicans" with illustrations by N.C. Wyeth flew off the shelf and into my hands. Here's the deal: see the movie with Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye, and Wes Study as Magua, and a lot of other good actors beside. The movie will give you a feel for the scenic beauty of colonial America, and the physicality of the characters, It's breathtaking. Then, read the book. You'll be in for lots of surprises as the story takes twists and turns that Michael Mann (the director) couldn't possibly keep up with, violence that takes your breath away, and a layer of humor that the movie totally missed. And the language - oy! Beautiful english that waltzes around the page.

I know this is supposed to be one for the kids, but, it's adult fiction that's absolutely stunning.

This is also a nice heavy volume with big print, and beautiful, albeit very romantic, illustrations

Cora and Alice are damsels in distress. They've had a hard day. Captured by Injuns, tied to stakes to be burned alive, set free only to be recaptured later. In the 18th Century they didn't have aspirin for headaches.
This may not be the most realistic book on the shelf, nor the most psychologically deep, but it is a good enough adventure story to have me reading the last 150 pages in one day.
The heroes are white hunter Hawkeye with supernatural accuracy using that rifle of his, Mohican Indian chief Chingachgook, and his son Uncas. You want these guys on your side if you ever get in trouble in a bar.
I learned so much from this book. I learned that the Delaware Indians, also known as Lenni-Lenape and Mohican, are all noble and brave. I learned that the Mingo Indians, also known as Maqua or Iroquois, are all lying and treacherous. Oh-kay.
My guess is that at the time the book was written, the Delawares had already been defeated and dislocated off the eastern seaboard, so it was safe to glorify them. The Iroquois were probably still a threat.
The folly in leading Cora and Alice through Indian territory during time of war, behind a treacherous Indian guide named Le Renard Subtil, reminds me of the folly of Friar Lawrence in Romeo And Juliet, coming up with his foolish scheme of drugging Juliet into a zombie state instead of just coming clean and telling her parents that she was married to Romeo.
Anyway, good book. Read it.

Well, I'm glad I finished it, though I can't really say I enjoyed reading this book. I had such high hopes, and perhaps that was the problem. I remember when the movie came out and we watched it with my Grandpa (who is now 94!) he said that he had read the books when he was around 12 and that they were his favorite stories of all time. He was of course very angry that the movie didn't follow the book.

I am now 30 and finally getting around to reading it and for the life of me I cannot imagine a 12 year old both reading and enjoying this book. The story itself is fine, highly romanticized and inaccurate historical accounts of the Delaware and Hurons. And evil Huron kidnaps one of the English General's two daughters while the General, the fiancé of one of the daughters, and three men they come across - Uncas (the last of the Mohicans), his Father Chingachook and the white Scout who is called "Long Rifle" or "Hawkeye." The story consists mainly of this group saving the girls, then the girls getting captured again, then they save them again, and they are re-captured... all the while we are lectured on the surroundings and the trees and the moss, and the leaves... it is very verbose and tedious, and interrupts what should have been the more interesting parts of the book.

The characters are very weak, with almost no definition and the dialogue is atrocious. In all what should have been a very exciting romp through the North American wilderness is hindered by the execution of the story. There is perhaps a lot of background that I missed by not reading the rest of the "Leather Stalking Tales," but after reading this, I am not sure that I would be able to sit through much more of Cooper's style. It was frustrating because I wanted so badly to love this book. Unfortunately I ended up rather ambivalent to it all and will be forced to mark it as simply "Okay." Though I am glad that I read this, I really don't think I would recommend it to anyone other than those like myself who are determined to read through most of the Classics.

I first read "Last of the Mohicans" many years ago. Recently, I was doing research on the Beaver Wars of the 17th century and learned a great deal about the history of the early colonies and the relationships between the various Native American nations and tribal groups. It's fascinating stuff, to say the least.
After completing the research (which resulted in a two volume set of books entitled "Iroquois Wars" available on the store.com), I re-read Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" with a more careful eye. Clearly, Cooper knew his stuff. He captures the true spirit of the American frontier spot on. He retains a mournful sensitivity toward the plight of the dwindling eastern woodland tribes while offering none of the absurd modern political correctness that makes every Indian wise, generous, and kind, and every European colonist vicious, greedy, and ignorant. While subject to the occasional novelist's hyperbole, Cooper also draws an accurate picture of Native military tactics and rituals. The various harangues and conversations he creates could have been lifted directly from the pages of the Jesuit Relations or other primary sources in which actual conversations were recorded by those who understood the various Algonquian and Iroquoian tongues.
In short, I highly recommend "Last of the Mohicans" to anyone who enjoys historical novels or those with a particular interest in frontier history, the American colonial wars, or the native tribes of the eastern woodlands. The book truly is an American classic. (P.S., don't bother with the recent movie of the same name--it bears only passing resemblance to this book).

The Last of the Mohicans takes place during the French and Indian War, and it covers the fall of Ft. William Henry in 1757 to the French. In the vast woods travel Chingachgook, his son Uncas, and Hawkeye, a white man who is more comfortable with Indians. Chingachgook and Uncas are the last of the Mohicans, an Indian tribe. Although Hawkeye's niche is clearly with the Mohicans, he constantly asserts throughout the book that he is white and does not have Indian blood.

One day, this group meets with travelers heading to the fort. In this group are Cora and Alice Munro, Major Duncan Heyward, their Indian guide Magua, and later a minstrel named David Gamut. The girls want to meet with their father, British Colonel Munro at the fort. Magua has deliberately led them astray, but when confronted, he escapes. Magua is a Huron whose loyalities lie with the French, and he harbors deep resentment to Colonel Munro. The group arrives at the fort, but the fort falls to the French. The French and British have terms of peace, but the Indian allies of the French do not heed these terms, causing much bloodshed. Alice, Cora, and Gamut are captured, and the rest of the book covers the wild "rescue" of these three. Action and adventure depict the wild frontier, and there are also hints of love. Heyward and Alice are kind but "delicate" while Uncas and Cora are bold and courageous.

Great book. The plot moves quickly, although sometimes it is a little stagnant. However, the need to know what happens next drives the reader to continue reading. In addition, Cooper does a good job describing each character. One can imagine courageous Hawkeye standing there on the hills, a white man in deerskin, with his rifle, or the laconic but admirable Uncas emanating with courage and skill. Cooper describes the setting well--the wild frontier, complete with the sound effects of nature. The Indian skirmishes are described graphically, which is all the better for forming mental images.

Although this book is wonderful, I do have some complaints. In the beginning, there are long footnotes, and they distracted me. Also, there is some conversation in French but no translation! As one person pointed out, yes, a lot of characters have more than one name in the book. For example, Major Heyward is called Heyward, Duncan (his first name), the major, etc... It is not bad for Heyward, but for others, it can get a little confusing, especially in dialogue, if there are just titles (ie: "the Indian", "the latter," "the scout"). Also, there are tons of Indian tribes mentioned--Mohawk, Delawares, Huron, Mingo, Yengeese, Maquas--some of them are one in the same, but especially in the earlier parts, it can be hard to discern who's who.

I am glad I picked up The Last of the Mohicans. I am impressed by the first great American novelist, James Fenimore Cooper, and he deserves that title 100%.

This is a good book to read, though it tends to drag on at times. The story is well known, and attests to the authorship of James Fenimore Cooper. This will forever be a classic piece of American literature with characters people can identify with and appreciate. Cooper is a very good storyteller.

Another "character" of the work is the landscape in which the story unfolds. Cooper's description of upstate New York does for literature what the Romantic painters of the Hudson River School did on canvas. Cooper writes of the crags and forests in such a way that the reader feels every drop of water or every sharp stone the books character's encounter.

As said this book drags on at times but in general it has a good pace. Twenty-first century readers will struggle at times with the context and verbage, but this will remain an important book from the nineteenth century.

I just wanted to comment that for this Oxford World's Classics edition, the font is too small for my 50+ year old eyes. It must be 6 point or something like that. I've never had this kind of trouble with a trade edition of any book in the past. Nice cover, binding, and paper but unless you want to feel like you're reading a credit card disclosure, I suggest you find another publisher. My apologies to James Fenimore Cooper as I expect your writing is worthy of 5 stars but it's of no use if I can't see it.

James Fenimore Cooper's novel "The Last of the Mohicans" (subtitled "A Narrative of 1757"), is a remarkable book for many reasons. First published in 1826, the book represents an early attempt to create substantial literary art from the material of North American history and geography. Although the book has its flaws, it is for the most part a success.
In the novel, the white woodsman Hawk-eye and his Mohican Indian comrade Chingachgook join forces to help the daughters of a white military officer through hostile territory. The story takes place in a colonial American setting marked by conflict between French and English forces -- a conflict that also involves various Indian nations.
There are a number of exciting (and often graphically violent) scenes of battle and chase. Hawk-eye, a white man who, to a large degree, rejects European-American values, is a fascinating figure -- indeed, he is one of the most enduring fictional creations in all of United States literature. Through the mouths of Hawk-eye and the various Indian characters, Cooper offers some intriguing criticisms of white culture.
As I said, the book is not without flaws. The momentum of the book lags for a brief stretch, and some of Cooper's characters (in particular, his women) at times sound a bit stereotypical. But the overall power and intelligence of Cooper's work is undeniable. Particularly impressive is his re-creation of a multilingual world of complex cultural and personal conflict. Also noteworthy is his evocation of the American landscape. A tale of death and survival, of betrayal and loyalty, and, above all, of the extraordinary bond between a white man and an Indian, "The Last of the Mohicans" is one classic that deserves to be read and reevaluated by each generation.

Cooper's Prose at times seems designed to hide his meaning from the reader. It is florid, overblown, and full of circumlocution.
Some of the plot twists can only be described as bone-headed. Two examples: The protagonists engage in a song fest while trying to hide in woods crawling with hostile Indians. They search for a fort by following the rut plowed by a cannonball.
Notwithstanding its flaws, "Mohicans" is an engaging tale about remarkable people whom the reader comes to care about.
In the Leatherstocking Saga, Cooper anticipates Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories. Both Tarzan and Hawk-eye are noble men from "civilized" stock thriving in a wilderness among "savages." Cooper and Burroughs both do violence to the English language, both write contrived plots with improbable twists, but both nevertheless spin tales of wondrous adventure.
One scarcely noted aspect of the story is the undercurrent of racism and tribalism that permeates the tale. Every Indian tribe seems to hate every other tribe; whites hate Indians; Indians hate whites; and so on ad nauseum.
Magua tells Cora he hates her because she is white like the man who sold him whiskey and caused him to disgrace himself. Cora defends herself: "And am I answerable that thoughtless and unprincipled men exist, whose shade of countenance may resemble mine?" Ironically, Cora, on her mother's side, is "descended ... from that unfortunate class who are so basely enslaved to administer the wants of a luxurious people."
When Munro accuses Heyward of preferring his (Munro's) daughter Alice to her half-sister Cora because of Cora's Black ancestry, Heyward replies: "Heaven protect me from a prejudice so unworthy of my reason!" No sooner does he express this noble sentiment than he shows great relief to learn that Alice's mother is Scottish on both sides of her family.
Then there is the trans-racial partnership between Hawk-eye and Chingachgook, in which some critics see the prototype for the Mel Gibson/Danny Glover partnership in the "Lethal Weapon" series. And finally there is the trans-racial love between Cora and Uncas.
The story, although a swashbuckling adventure, has a distinct subplot of racial prejudice. We see the characters nobly overcoming it at times but basely succumbing to it at others.

I never really had any intention of ever reading this booking, having assumed that it was romanticized nonesense, but after watching the movie, and, for some reason, enjoying it, I decided that the time had come: I had to read the book.
So I did. At first, I'll admit, the going was a little slow, as the writing is somewhat fanciful and the dialogue stilted, but this awkwardness became less of an issue the more I became enthralled by the story.
Having seen the movie in advance, it was interesting to see how much the movie had in fact diverged from the story. Actually, aside from many of the characters, the setting, and the general premise of the story, the movie is quite different from the book. So much so, that it is safe to say that the movie has totally failed to capture the true spirit of the novel, and is little more than the typical Hollywood historical romance. The most unfortunate aspect of the movie, however, is how the "patriotic" element was incorporated--this is simply not in the book. I do have to say that the movie in its own right is good, but it utterly fails as an adaptation.
The is no doubt that Last of the Mohicans is a classic. It is a book that I know will be reread a number of times before my time comes, and I'm sure with each reading, new meaning and insight will be found in its pages.

I had a sort of love/hate relationship with this book. Cooper's writing style is so difficult to read and there were many times that I would read and reread sections and still have no idea what Cooper was trying to say. However, I was basically able to follow the plot, and even though the book is way too long, the story is really good.
I saw the movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and was completely disgusted. Cooper's book deserved so much better than it got in that movie. I can understand the movie-makers wanting to have Hawkeye be a hunky young man instead of a middle-aged man who has a tendency to talk all the time, but come on, couldn't they have stayed more true to the basic plot of the book than they did? All that crap about the Colonial Militia and Hawkeye being imprisoned for helping some of the colonists escape the fort was just irritating and stupid.

A great story about the early American frontier. The depth of the characters is extraordinary. The author goes to great length to bring the reader to an understanding of what life was like in those times. The interplay between the English and the French and their influence on the many different Indian nations. The lone wolf scout and his relationship with the Indians both good and bad. I also found the depth of detail about the customs of the Indians most interesting. I must admit that the ending was certainly different from what I had expected. Although it was different from what I usually read it was overall an enjoyable read.

I disagree with anybody who found this book boring or tedious reading. At the tender age of 13 I picked up this book. Of course, at that age I would have had a right to dislike it ,but it turned out to be the highlight of my reading life. Ever since then I have compare every book to this one ,and in my mind's eye all have taken a backseat. I've read the whole series of Leatherstocking tales since then ,and they now hold the best seat in my library. Besides the Bible, I surely do consider the Leatherstocking tales my favorite books. In this fast paced world I can understand how people can grow weary of this book. It's much more than Indians and Pale faces running through the forest though. The reader must put as much thought and emotion into it as the author has done to develop his characters. As in the words of my English teacher ,"Cooper reads like a smooth glass of lemonade--let him sit on your tongue for a moment."

This is one of the books that every western teenager should read, especially the kids interested in history. The book inspired me to study more about the Seven Years' War and eventually I even did my M.A. thesis on it. However, the author's perspective is very pro-British, so it has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS is an adventure story set in the frontier wilderness of New York during the French and Indian War (1756-1763). The war is fought between the British and the French. The latter make alliances with several Native American tribes.

The main characters of the novel are Hawkeye, Magua, Duncan Heyward, Uncas, Cora Munro, Alice Munro, Colonel Munro and General Montcalm. Hawkeye is a scout and woodsman. Magua is a rogue member of the Huron tribe and the villain of the story. Duncan Heyward is a young major in the British Army. Uncas is the last member of the Mohican tribe and a protege of Hawkeye. Cora Munro is the daughter of Colonel Munro who is the commander of the British Army at Fort William Henry. Cora is partly of African descent. Alice Munro is Cora's younger half-sister. General Montcalm is a famous French general.

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS is mostly a tale of adventure but it is also a love story which explores the challenges of interracial friendship and romance. The book's writing style is typical of an early nineteenth century novel and for that reason it is not always easy to understand. THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS is a classic which raises questions that still remain relevant today.

This review pertains to the Penguin Classic edition, which has a fascinating introductory essay by Professor Richard Slatkin. But I would save the essay for last; it's so pedagogic in nature, it almost strips Cooper's French & Indian War masterpiece of the fundamental magnetism that has drawn countless readers to it for over 150 years.
For this reader, that "magnetism" is the sheer awe-inspiring beauty and terror of the North American primal forest. Slatkin's essay is rather bloodless, but I can assure you that this novel is not. And the idea of constantly running and hiding from an archetypical villain, like Magua, and his band of warrior Hurons, who feel quite comfortable with the act of cleaving one's skull with a hatchet, is quite unsettling.
Of course, "The Last of the Mohicans" is not a depiction of Native Americans through the lens of 21st Century sensibilities. Unquestionably, the modern day reader should be at least a little horrified at the near extinction of the Native American population. But no matter how sensitive one is about their tragic, inexorable decline, it is still an unalterable fact that -- under the alliance they entered into with the French -- several Eastern tribes struck abject terror into the hearts of 18th Century British Colonials. (May I suggest a casual inquiry into the colonial history of Deerfield, Massachusetts? The hatchet marks can still be seen on the wooden doors.)
The setting for "The Last of the Mohicans" is the great waterway formed by Lake Champlain, Lake George and the Hudson River. The last glacial retreat laid down a perfect invasion route for the French moving south from Quebec, or the British moving north from Albany. That is why the area is studded with old colonial forts at strategic choke points. It is on the way to Ft. William Henry that the heroines, Cora and Alice Munro, are betrayed by Magua, who was charged with guiding the defenseless daughters to their beloved father -- an old Scottish warhorse, who serves as commander of the fort. How the daughters are captured, escape, nearly massacred and recaptured occupy the first half of the book. Their eventual rescue forms the second half.
Cooper's action-packed narrative is an artful blend of history and fiction. There was, indeed, a siege of Ft. William Henry by the French General, the Marquis de Montcalm. And there was some sort of trouble with Montcalm's Indian allies, but there is now serious doubt about a full-scale massacre of the fort's inhabitants. Indeed, Cooper has been criticized for botching numerous historical facts, but the "massacre myth" cannot be laid solely at his door. No less than the preeminent American historian, Francis Parkman, devoted several pages to the supposed incident.
What is outright fiction is Cooper's heroic protagonist, Hawk-eye. He is the central character throughout Cooper's 5-book Leatherstocking Series of which "The Last of the Mohicans" is the second installment. Hawk-eye (better known as "Natty Bumppo" in the other 4 volumes) is one of the most enduring figures in all of American Literature. The honest-speaking, self-reliant, nature-loving, chaste woodsman/warrior is indelibly etched in our national psyche. It's no exaggeration to say he has influenced generations of Americans. Surely our military has taken to the man -- the Hawkeye missile is just one explicit manifestation.
Juxtaposed to Hawk-eye is the Huron Chieftain, Magua, who wreaks havoc on everyone, including himself. Trust me -- he's not the sort of fellow you'd want over for a weekend barbecue. His descent into darkness began with a fondness for the bottle, which led to the expulsion from his own tribe. And his kidnapping of Colonel Munro's daughters stems from a humiliating whipping ordered by their father. Magua lives in the obscure half-world betwixt the tribe that abandoned him and the British Army that he betrayed.
Cooper has seemingly placed Hawk-eye and Magua at opposite ends on the continuum of good and evil. But perhaps they are not quite that far apart. There's something a bit unsettling about the heroic Hawk-eye. Like Magua, he occupies a strange middle ground, shunning white civilization (into which he was born), but hardly embracing Native American culture (with the exception of his friendship with Chingachgook and his son, Uncas.) And while I would not lable Hawk-eye an outright racist, he does ridicule and dehumanize his Indian foes. And as for exterminating them, he has no scruple about that. He'd shoot every one of them given the chance.
Say this for Magua -- he is no racist. He offers his wigwam (albeit in forced circumstances) to Colonel Munro's eldest daughter, Cora, whose dark hair and dusky complexion are traceable to her Caribbean slave ancestry. As Slatkin points out in his essay, the commingling of their blood would unite the three great races of our nation's history. Such an amalgamation is unthinkable to Hawk-eye. In the final scene of the book, Colonel Monroe asks Hawk-eye to translate for the Delaware maidens the hope that one day all of God's children, regardless of color, will assemble around his throne. What is Hawk-eye's response? "To tell them this, would be to tell them that the snows come not in winter..."
Perhaps Hawk-eye's response is his cold calculus that our country could never become part white/part red, and that the latter must inevitably fade away. Magua understands this all too well. Native Americans are playing a losing hand, especially when they end up fighting one another. Afterall, notwithstanding the honor of saving Cora and Alice, what's really in it for Hawk-eye's Mohican allies in their battle with the Hurons? In a word, extinction. In some ways, Magua is spiritually akin to the real-life Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawa Nation, who asked his tribesmen if they knew what happened to the Great Narragansett? I'll tell the reader. More than one hundred years before Cooper's haunting tale, the Puritans exterminated the Rhode Island tribe, and the Iroquois hunted down the few ragged survivors.

If you are a fan of literary classics, this book is a must read. Cooper has a story telling gift and it shows in this classic. Many movie versions have been made of this story, but nothing matches the quality of the writing of this book. The writing can be a little deep and it isn't for everyone. This is another book that as a college professor I find many students can't seem to understand or enjoy it. Sad.
Overall, I recommend this book for anyone with interests in reading and enjoying a true classic.

My review has nothing to do with the novel itself, but with the paperback version of it. I was bitterly disappointed to see that these Wonderful Illustrations were all black and white!! The only color was on the front and back covers!! I was giving it to my grandson to encourage his reading. I'm sure Mr Wyeth would turn over in his grave to see what you've done to his wonderful art work!!

Like the Star Wars movies, Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales were written out of sequence. In their chronological order, with their order of publication in parentheses, they are: The Deerslayer (5), The Last of the Mohicans (2), The Pathfinder (4), The Pioneers (1) and The Prairie (3). So if you want to read them in either chronological or published order, you should read Mohicans second. But each novel is self-contained, so if you want to try just one, to decide if the rest are worth reading, then Mohicans is the one to start with, as it is his most famous work and generally acknowledged to be his best.

The hero of these tales, the improbably named Nathaniel Bumppo (or Natty, or Deerslayer, or Hawkeye, or The Long Rifle, or...etc, etc) was the first, and remains the quintessential, all-American fictional hero; brave, noble, honest and more at home in the wilderness than the town. He is not however, the strong, silent type. He has a habit of launching into long, rambling streams of homespun philosophy at the drop of a coonskin cap. Never mind that lead shot is flying thick and fast around his ears, he will lean on his rifle and expound on the different natures of Indians and whites, or the evils of literacy.

The plot of Mohicans is action-packed, but is linear - no surprise twists, and no sub-plots - and contains some highly improbable elements. Well, would you be fooled by an enemy disguised as a beaver? Michael Mann's excellent 1992 screen version reworked the plot extensively, to its advantage.

Cooper was the first distinctively American novelist and was inspired by Walter Scott, the inventor of the historical novel. He was consciously attempting to emulate Scott but, although he writes quite well, he lacks Scott's lyricism. And his characters, specially the women, are resiliently two-dimensional. But he did capture the spirit of the frontier, the pride and pain of a new and growing country, and in doing so created myths out of America's past that have survived, evolved, and have sustained the nation, ever since.

As someone in a review of another book so aptly put it, it is improbable that it is necessary to reiterate a classic such as "Last of the Mohicans" so I will not try. What I will say to each student who is required to read this and believes that they can more easily watch the well-known movie starring Daniel Day Lewis-you will be making a grave mistake. The most obvious error will show in the grade that you receive in any class which requires some knowledge of the story. The second is that you will miss one of the great classics as it was written. (The third possibility is that you will be chatting at your intellectual best and make a total fool of yourself but that is your problem.) I re-read "Last of the Mohicans" many years ago--enough that much of the story and details had escaped my memory. I was surprised, having watched the movie, to be reminded of the truth of the story. In a word, the movie is so twisted (as Hollywood is wont to do) that it fails to come near the actual book. Not only are large parts of the book eliminated but they changed important scenes I suppose in the interest of what they thought to be more dramatic. Further, they played fast and loose with the characters and the connections between them even to exchanging personalities and race. Now, I realize you are saying, "but this review is about the book, not the movie". The book is a masterpiece of confluence, history, and thrilling and heartwrenching action. The language is dated but that provides a more thorough picture of the times and mores that existed and only adds to the value of the book. This particular printing is also graced with explanations which will be helpful in a full understanding of the script and enrich the experience and meaning of that period of history. Don't deny yourself the full story as James Fenimore Cooper intended. It is a wonderfully engrossing story and well worth the time you will spend. There is a reason a book becomes a classic and this is an example of that.

I had a really hard time with this "classic" of American literature, but then, I've never been really thrilled with early 19th century American writers. The style of the period is over-wordy by today's standards, with a great deal of what is essentially sermonizing both on the part of the author and the characters and very little real dialogue or character development. I'm a person who can generally consume any 400 page novel in a day or so, but I found I could not read more than about a chapter of LOTM at a time, and my attention wandered a lot.
The story by itself it a pretty good one, dealing with the middle part of the French and Indian War. There is a great deal of fighting, striving with the wilderness, being exposed to alien cultures, and a dash of romance thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, the story suffers from the over-abundance of words. Every encounter is melodramatized to the point of boredom, and the actual events get lost. Hawkeye, that redoubtable woodsman, never shuts up, and after a while everything he says is the same. Likewise for the other characters. There isn't any growth or development.
I became increasingly offended by the portrayal of the Indians, both hostile and friendly, as either noble savages or just savages, obviously inferior to the white man. I also became increasingly offended with the portrayal of the two women, both of whom represented stereotypes of femininity popular at the time. I realise that Cooper was writing at a time when it was not much the practice to see value in native cultures and the memory, if not the actual experience, of the real violence between the American aborigines and the European immigrants was still close to the surface, but that didn't keep me from being disgusted at his overbearing and superior attitude.
I'm glad I read this book, because it is held a classic. But that's the only thing that kept me going.

I do not know if I have too much to add to the outstanding reviews of this book on 'the store'. by Peter Reeve and B. Mirsky.

However my thought is about the mythic element of the story, the creation of the type of the American hero, strong and silent, and of the 'noble savage.'

What most effected me was the story of the noble savage, of Uncas, of the 'Last of the Mohicans' of the individual's dying meaning the dying of a people . In one sense this perhaps symbolizes the triumph of 'civilization'. But in another it suggests a great crime and loss.

Cooper as Mark Twain perhaps too hilariously taught us writes awkwardly. But he also has a kind of strength of invention, a freshness of beginning. And that perhaps draws readers to these works in spite of their stylistic and literary defects.

Having seen and enjoyed Last of the Mohicans movies, I knew I wanted to read the novel someday. The book, as many have noted, is challenging due to its wordy old English style, the many different characters, places and events, often referred to by different names, etc. But, if you just go with it and get the gist, and not worry about not understanding some words or phrases, it is a thoroughly engrossing read. As much as I loved the great Daniel Day Lewis LotM movie, it is only loosely related to the book. More like pieces/scenes from the book are recreated, but following a very different screenplay. For example: there is no love story, at all, between Hawkeye and Cora (and no cheesy, "Stay alive- I will find you!!!"). No murder of Munro by Magua. Duncan actually loves Alice, who both survive, while Cora is brutally murdered by Magua. And so on. While reading the book I was very aware that it would be almost impossible to make a coherent movie following the book. And, as is always true, the book provides so much more interesting detail than can be covered in a 2-3 hour movie. For example, the description of how Chingotchgook, Uncas and Hawkeye became separated from their tribe many years before, and then are emotionally reunited with their descendant tribe-a turtle tattoo figures prominently (read the book!:)- is very touching and deep. I would have loved to have seen that, somehow, in the movie.

If you like early American history, Native American history at the time of the revolution, etc. this original novel of the genre is a must read. Just know that there will be sections that are kind of hard to follow. The book, despite its age and flaws, is emotionally powerful and thrilling.

Set in upstate New York in colonial times, Cooper here tells the tale of the stolid colonial scout Hawkeye, nee Natty Bumppo (don't ask), who, with his two Indian companions Chingachgook (the Big Snake) and his son Uncas (apparently newly come to manhood), stumble on a party of British soldiers conducting two fair maidens to their father, the commander of British Fort William Henry during the French and Indian War. Under the watchful eyes of the young British officer who has the girls in his charge and led by a Huron scout, Magua, the party appears, to the indomitable Hawkeye, to be at greater risk than they realize as they trek through the wilderness toward the safety of the girls' father's garrison. And, indeed, Hawkeye's judgement is soon proved right as the scout Magua treacherously betrays the hapless girls in repayment, it seems, for a stint of corporal punishment inflicted on him previously by their absent parent. Since the Hurons, Magua's native tribe, are culturally akin to the Iroquois who are the herditary enemies of the Algonquin Delawares, from whom Chingachgook and his son hail and among whom Hawkeye has made his home and friendships, a natural antagonism arises almost at once between Hawkeye's party and the Huron and this proves salutary, when danger finally strikes. The tale quickly becomes a matter of flight and pursuit through thickly overgrown primeval forests, over rough mountains and across broad open lakes as the beleagured travelers first elude and then flee the dreaded Iroquois (allies of the French) who have joined the renegade Huron in an effort to seize the two girls. After a brief respite within the safety of William Henry however, the tables are once again turned as Magua's perfidy puts the girls once more at risk. And now the story shifts to a manic pursuit of the fleeing Magua who means to carry off his human prey in order to finally have his revenge on the girls' father, on the British and on the Europeans, generally, whose presence in his native country he blames (not altogether unjustifiably) for his myriad travails. Written in the fine tradition of the 19th century romance (which, of course, is what this book is), Cooper picked up where Sir Walter Scott (the venerable founder of this novelistic tradition) left off, creating a rich historical tale of adventure, nobility and marvelously sketched characters set against a brilliantly detailed natural landscape. If his characters are less keenly drawn than Scott's they are no less memorable for, in the quiet nobility of the scout Hawkeye lies the strong, silent hero of the wilderness which has become the archetypical protagonist in our own American westerns. And the Indians, Chingachgook and Uncas, are the very prototypes of the noble savage, so much used, and over-used, today. This is a tale of action first and foremost without much plot but so well told that you barely notice, as our heroes flee and pursue their enemies in turn -- until the very quickness of the prose seems to mirror and embody the speed of the action. Nor is this book only to be read for its rapid-fire rendition of flight and pursuit, for it touches the reader on another level as well, as the bold young Uncas moves out ahead of his comrades to place himself at risk for the others and the woman he loves. Although we never see Uncas at anything but a distance and never get to know the man he is supposed to be, he is yet a symbol of that people of whom he is the last chiefly descendant, the Delaware Mohicans. Nobly born into the finest of Mohican bloodlines, Uncas faces his final trial with heroic energy and resolve in order to defeat the nefarious and twisted Magua. Yet this struggle is also the final footnote in the story of a people, marking the closing chapter for all those Indians who, with the Mohicans, have, in Cooper's own words, seen the morning of their nation and the inevitable nightfall which must follow. If you give this book a chance and bear with some of the heavy nineteenth century prose, it will prove out in the end. An exciting and worthwhile read.

SWM
author of The King of Vinland's Saga

If you are a fan of literary classics, this book is a must read. Cooper has a story telling gift and it shows in this classic. Many movie versions have been made of this story, but nothing matches the quality of the writing of this book. The writing can be a little deep and it isn't for everyone. This is another book that as a college professor I find many students can't seem to understand or enjoy it. Sad.
Overall, I recommend this book for anyone with interests in reading and enjoying a true classic.

First off, Cooper must be given deserved props for featuring Native Americans (both good and evil) as main characters in this 1820's novel. The growing United States had anything but a harmonious relationship with Native Americans at this time and for an author to write about such an unknown people in such a prominent way showed a lot of creative courage. Yes, the portrayal of the Indians was quite un-PC at times and, if you are sensitive to such issues, hard to read. The word "savage" is liberally used and many, if not all, of the actions the various Native Americans and their tribes undertake are described with imagery too close to that of animals, i.e. packs of dogs or hyenas. While Cooper's intentions are noble and the mere existence of the book speaks volumes, "The Last of the Mohicans" is very much a product of its time, and sadly, that time was not always the most enlightened.
That being said, the plot of the novel is pure action and adventure. Taking place during the French-Indian War, the story centers around two English sisters who are being escorted through hostile forests from one English Fort to another. The action begins when one of the girls' scouts- Magua, a Native American supposedly ostracized by his own tribe- attempts to betray the girls but is thwarted by the arrival of a scout named Hawkeye, i.e. Natty Bumppo, the main character of Cooper's previous novel. Joined by two Mohicans, a father and son, Hawkeye saves the girls and attempts to lead them to safety, only to be confronted by Magua and other attacking natives.
The action is practically non-stop. Hawkeye and the girls eventually reach safety, only to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The girls' are eventually kidnapped by Magua and others, leading to the lengthy climax which involves some Mission Impossible-style rescue missions and prolonged, quite violent, action. Unfortunately, while Cooper has concocted a complicated yet well executed plot, he frequently slows his plot's pace down with his overly complicated writing style and lengthy, lenghty sentences. Cooper is a smart writer, not really difficult, but the problem is that his style of overly descriptive writing works better when setting scenes (the early chapters when the sisters are walking through the forest waiting for danger, but not yet encountering it, are great!) than it does for creating exhilarating action.
This is a good book, and for historical reasons, possibly a great book. Reading this in the 21st century, however, it can be hard getting through some of the demeaning descriptions of the natives. Also, Cooper's prose is undeniably dated- very much of a certain literary era- and while this betters the book in some ways, it also deadens it in others. I recommend reading it, but don't expectness greatness. Just really goodness.

This is Cooper's masterpiece, especially if you measure by popularity. His second installment in the Leatherstocking tales does quite a bit to deserve its reputation. This book was likely written to delve into the backstory of Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook, the characters that emerged as, by far, the most interesting ones in Cooper's first Leatherstocking tale ('The Pioneers').

Due to it's tight pacing, 'The Last of the Mohicans' is easily the best read of the five Leatherstocking Tales. It is also the most consistently plotted and paced book of the series because, as a tale of betrayal, flight, captivity, and frontier warfare, Cooper has a lot less time to indulge in his stately prose (although you'll still need to use a machete to cut through some mile-long sentences!).

'The Last of the Mohicans' has all the physical confrontation that makes for a great adventure story. There are plenty of battles and a pretty extraordinary level of violence considering the time the book was written (kids getting murdered, rotting corpses, and plenty of scalps a-flying). The novel isn't gleefully graphic, but Cooper makes no bones about the

tenuous hold people had on life on the frontier. Considering his usual penchant for rank sentimentality, he's surprisingly detached about the violence he depicts in this book. To me this is evidence that he definitely knew how to shut off the histrionics.

Another reason for the success of the book are the characters. Leatherstocking (going by Hawkeye here) is in his prime as a hero/scout. He is authoratative, brave, cunning, and always knows what to do. Chingachgook is powerful, unpredictable, and savage. However, he takes a backseat to his son Uncas. While Cooper gives Uncas little dialogue, Cooper gives us a very clear picture of what makes him a hero and what motivates him. Cooper's writing, overall, shows an uncharacteristic level of restraint in this regard.

A bigger surprise was the character of Cora. Generally, Cooper is incapable of handling female characterization without building a nauseating shrine to the 'gentle sex.' As a result, it is all the more refreshing to find Cora outspoken, resolute, and strong. During one sequence when several characters are imprisoned by the Iriquois, it is she - not her 'brave male protector' - who remembers to leave a trail in the forest so they can be rescued.

On the other side of the fence, Le Renard Subtile is the best villian of the series by a long shot. Even though you hate him, you can't help but sympathize with him to a certain degree. Cooper skillfully (and without preaching) uses the tragedy of Indian displacement as Magua's motivation. Though it's hard not to feel Magua's anger is justified on some level, Cooper prevents you from rooting for his villian and this creates some interesting tensions.

As with many of the Leatherstocking tales, victory is bittersweet and is necessarily a defeat for the wilderness Hawkeye loves. The fate of the Mohicans clearly foreshadows what Cooper (and the reader) knows will become of every Native American in this tale (or in real life). Comparing these charcters to their latter selves in 'The Pioneers' underscores this very emotionally.

You can definitely enjoy 'The Last of the Mohicans' all by itself and as a straight-up frontier advernture, but there is more to be found if you read it a little deeper. It is a book every American should read. NOTE: Please don't hold the dreadful Daniel Day Louis movie against this book; the two have little in common beyond their titles.

In a world where so much that is called "literature" (and isn't) dominates the mind of the reading public, the power of the classics really shines through. This is an absolute must-read for Americans, if for no other reason that to give an idea of attitudes and values of Cooper's era. Exciting, moving and able to sustain the interest of the reader, no one should consider himself well-read if he has not read Cooper's masterpiece "The Last of the Mohicans."

The Last Of The Mohicans is a great great read. I learned a lot from this book, which in my opinion is often a true test of a books merit.

Set in 1757 it follows the adventures of a group of "fish out of water" Brits and three extremely skilled woodsmen. The main character, Hawkeye, is probably one of the most exciting heroes I've come across in fiction. His constantly drawn contrasts between "book smarts" and "woods smarts" really turned the notion of what a 'savage' is on its head.

Though I don't want to give anything away, the book has some surprises at the end that will surly shock you and make you re-read the passage to make sure you actually saw what you think you saw.

The story has all the elements of a good adventure: well rounded characters, a solid plot, action, suspense, and a woman in need of help. Of course, it reflects some of the beliefs and stereotypes that prevailed in that time period, but I think that(to some extent) that is to be expected. It is true, as some other people pointed out, that Cooper can be a little bit long winded some times, but I think that is very typical of literature written before the 20th century. Overall, I think it is a very good story, and if you like adventures and early American literature then you will love this story.

The Last of The Mohicans - This book was great! I loved it! The saddest part of the book was when Cora Munro and Chief Uncas the Mohican dies. But my favorite part was, well I didn't have one because it was all great! My favorite character was Major Hayward. The books setting was here in North America during the French-Indian war. It is about two Mohicans escorting the two daughters Cora and Alice Munro to a fort named William Henry, and along the way they run into a tribe of evil Iroquois Indians. Their leader Le Renald Subtil wanted revenge on the British for making them drink fire water. So Renald captures Cora and attempts to merry her but she got killed before Renald could merry her and so Renald jumps off of a cliff in his greif and falls to his death. I loved all the excitement. The author described things in GREAT detail.~BU

what is an ist book? racist, sexist, ageist, class ist, and anything else that ends in 'ist' and is thought negative. now, put all those 'ist's together and you have a classic novel. they aren't politically correct but they do show us something of the times in which they were made. as for this book specifically it showed somethings about the times that i really didnt even care to know,(the blond was more pure and usless therefore she was the one all the guys were after. and she was useless, let me tell you, she probably couldn't tie her own shoes or brush her own teeth with out some kind of supervision and at least two people helping her) i don't think i liked the out come of the story at all. i would say that the wrong people died at the end. i think that the movie was far more just. in fact, for most reasons i would say that you shouldn't even bother reading this book. the end will not make you happy. the one thing this book has in its favor is excitement. it has the most exciting chase scenes i have read in a book either classic or modern. when their little party was trapped in a cave trying to hide from the Indians i fell off the side of the chair that i was sitting on and couldn't find my page fast enough. the chase scenes are few and far between though. overall, i recommend skipping this book.

J. F. Cooper's classic Last of the Mohicans, is quite a read. This is the second time I have read it, last time was in college. Being older and more mature, I appreciated it more now. I realize, in our instant gratification society, that this eloquent and romantic style of expression may seem to most, verbose. To them I would direct to the movie. Frankly I was transported to another time when one could describe a single scene in several pages and not watch the clock. I enjoyed the expressive style, as well as the story.

This Kindle adaptation is poorly formatted and littered with awkward line breaks. Chapter 1 starts like this:

It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North
America, that
the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be
encountered before
the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently
an impervious
boundry of forests severed the possessions of the
hostile provinces
of France and England.

Instead you should download it free from Project Gutenberg and copy it over via USB or send it to yourself wirelessly for only a dime.

I have been enjoying Steinbeck, Dickens, Plato, Shakespeare and just about everything else since I was small enough to listen to daddy read. Huck Fin, Buck, Kino...they are all my heroes. I read this one out loud to my parents - all of it unabriged - and did not have any trouble despite my fourteen year old mind. The manner Cooper uses to draw you into the story is fascinating...and strange in a world where no one has the patience to enjoy the manner of man that through his writings was discribing himself and trying to earn bread for his table that night. (Which is better than a lot of people can say.)
Cooper's heroes are full of themselves. They are truly "men without a cross" as he, and they, say of themselves. Through the beautiful, melodius eloquence Cooper discribes the men that are much the same as Jonathan Seagull, Jesus Christ, Legolas and even Don Quixote. I respect him for the way that his characters DO what they believe and not wait for someone to back them up. Uncas prooved that well enough - in love or not.
Most of us love The Lord Of The Rings movies, they too kill for the same reason. To save something they believe to be of worth (Read the book, they butchered the movie)I think that everyone would like to have the words honestly said over you that were said over Le Cerf Agile and Cora.
TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHO THE MAN BEHIND THE COOPER MASK REALLY IS. you will then enjoy the adventure of a man's mind greater than any other.

A classic tale of the pioneering era just before the American War of Independence, The setting is the woodland area of early eastern, mainly NY, states. Cooper recreates a vivid picture of woodland skills through two Mohicans and their white scout companion. The conflict between the French and British (with colonial allies), and the different loyalties of the indigenous American tribes makes a story of high adventure. But it is more than that, for one is introduced to cultures that often undermine traditional prejudices and typing of groups, and the main characters show individual moral traits that justify how they act and react to others.
Cooper is a major American novelist.

I would have to say that I expected more from this book than I got in the final analysis. Still, I am glad I read it. Wonder why they had to change the movie so much from the book?
And, of course, it was much too long-winded for a reader, like myself, that does not "skim".
I thought the ending was a bit too abrupt, especially when considering the marathon pace of the rest of the book. Perhaps Cooper meant this to be taken so...
Also, The insight into racism was astonishing for something that was written in the 1800's (NOT the 1500's like another reviewer mentions).

There are a vast amount of differences among the cultures and societies of different races. But what of the differences among peoples of the same race? Take for example the peoples of the United States. What are the differences between a person from California and a person from Louisiana? When looked at under a microscope, there are a great many comparisons to be made about a person from the south and a person from the west-coast. James Fenimore Cooper makes a like comparison in his classic The Last of the Mohicans. Cooper looks at the differences between white Europeans (primarily British and French) and two tribes of North American Indians: the Mohicans and the Hurons. Cooper compares the two tribes of Indians as well. Cooper sets his novel in eastern North America during the French and Indian War. His characters are of two different races: white Europeans, British and French; and North American Indians, the Mohicans and the Hurons. Cooper's description of the characters, the scenery, the sounds, the ways of the Indians-this author gives such vivid descriptions of everything that the reader gets a very clear picture of it all; almost like a movie playing inside the mind. Packed with some kind of action or adventure in every chapter, The Last of the Mohicans is a classic piece of literature that is recommended to anyone. The plot begins with the two daughters of a British general attempting to travel from the military station they are at presently to the station of their father. Accompanied by attendants and an Indian guide, they set out on the journey to their father. Not long after the party commenced travelling, they are met by three people; two Mohicans and a white scout, who is friend to the Mohicans and is well-accustomed to the ways of Indians and the wilderness. The British party's Indian guide leaves them, and they turn to the scout and the Mohicans for help. The scout and his friends agree to help them get to the station. Much action and adventure begins at this point in the novel, and continues to the very last page. The Last of the Mohicans is not only interesting to read because the plot flows and moves smoothly, but it provides historical insight as well. Cooper's look at two different tribes of Indians makes comparisons the reader may not have seen before. The author may even change the reader's mind about the opinions he may have had about Indians based on what he knew about them prior to reading the novel. The Last of the Mohicans is not exactly a short book; it has thirty-three chapters. And the action does not begin on page one, but the plot does flow smoothly and logically into it. Once action appears for the first time, it does elevate and decline throughout the novel, but not in a way that seems jumpy. The increase and decrease of action flows logically, as the plot moves from event to event. And as Cooper gives a multitude of details and description, one may find a particular chapter difficult to get through; but even so, the reader always has a mental picture of everything he is reading. The parts that one may find difficult aren't too hard, and it is well worth it when one comes to the last page. Cooper tells the story eloquently and smoothly, and in a way that the reader does not lose interest. His use of description and imagery make the plot clear and easy to follow. The plot in itself is intriguing and keeps the reader interested from the first chapter all the way through chapter thirty-three.

While this book deserves some place in history for being an early work of American fiction and it's rich descriptions of early American geography, it is intensely hard to enjoy. The basic plotline is interesting, but the execution and character development is just plain awful. At many points in the book, Cooper just glosses over action leaving a confused reader wondering just what the hell happened and how. The real killer though is the character development. The unidimensional and shallow characters are stereotypes at best, and the women in the novel are written so thin they practically disappear. One might think that Cooper had never actually met a woman before given his portrayal. The book does have points to recommend it from a historical or geographical basis, but if anyone is actually looking for a good book to read, look elsewhere.

My initial reaction to the novel The Last of the Mohicans was, "wow! I am reading one of the greatest classic novels ever written." When I began to read, my expectations were high, but were quickly extinguished by what I read. From what I understood, the book was quite exciting, but very wordy. It seemed to make me think very hard; perhaps harder than what I care to when I am reading. I do, however, think the book lived up to its reputation as a classic.
In the book, Major Duncan Heyward is ordered to lead the Monro sisters, Cora and Alice, from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry where their father is stationed during the French and Indian War. An Indian named Magua who is supposed to know shortcut to Fort William Henry leads the group.
During their travels, they come across a woodsman named Hawkeye who is accompanied by a Mohican named Chingachgook. Hawkeye explains to Duncan that Chingachgook is the last of the Mohicans.
Duncan quickly explains that their guide, Magua, has become lost and cannot show them the way to Fort William Henry. Hawkeye asks Duncan of his guide's Indian background and is outraged when he learns that Magua is of the Huron tribe. Magua over hears the conversation and slips away into the forest unnoticed. He now knows that his plan to lead the group into a trap is foiled.
Hawkeye, Chingachgook, and Uncas agree to lead the small group to Fort William Henry since they sense the group is in danger of being attacked by the Huron Indian tribe. The group spends the night in a cave behind a waterfall but is found by the Huron Indians. The group is attacked and Cora convinces Hawkeye and the two Mohicans to escape by swimming underwater downriver.
The group is captured, and Magua leads Cora and Alice deep in the forest. He tells them of his plan to marry Cora as part of his revenge on Colonel Monro. Colonel Monro ordered Magua publicly beaten after getting drunk and not handling himself properly.
Cora refused to marry Magua. This angered him greatly and was about to kill the whole group, when Hawkeye and the Mohicans rushed in to the camp, killing all the Hurons except Magua.
At dawn the next day, the group drew near Fort William Henry. As they closed in, they realized that the fort was under attack by French troops and Iroquois Indians. The group moved slowly to the fort and entered uninjured, reuniting the girls with their father.
I thought James Fenimore Cooper's book is an exciting, borderline thriller. What you just read is a small sample of what the book has in store for you. The best parts are yet to come. You just have to read the book to understand what I am talking about. The setting, plot, and the characters make it seem like it was a real true story that keep you on the edge of your seat the whole way through.
I loved the story, but sometimes, it seemed so hard to get to the point Mr. Cooper was trying to make. His use of multiple adjectives to describe absolutely everything was quite repetitive and bothersome. I think the book would have been fifty pages shorter if he would have just got right down to the point instead of over describing the simplest of things.
All of the characters in the book are quite realistic. They all seem as though they lived the time period instead of just being part of the author's imagination. The whole story is believable and realistic. I loved the book.
I would recommend the book to anyone who likes this type of novel. I would even recommend this book to people who are not overly impressed by the time period, setting or plot. It is a great classic novel and it did not get to be that way by being terrible. It is complicated reading but very worthwhile.

The Last of the Mohicans was the first successful American novel and Cooper the first major american novelist. His desriptions of the New York wilderness and the Indian tribes that inhabit them are beautiful. They also are for the most part accurate. There are romantic themes running thorough the story. The reader feels the loss of a dying people and a dying way of life. The settlement of indian territories by colonists and native American tribal warfare are also rendered in deft prose.

This certainly is not an easy read, but one that is well worth the effort.

Sorry - but even though I enjoyed this book - the author has made a HUGE mistake by claiming that the main character was "The Last of the Mohicans".

In future he should do his research before making wild and ridiculous statements that can be pounced on by a discerning reviewer such as I

Why, only yesterday, at the mall, I saw several kids with Mohican styled haircuts lurking around the food court, Old Navy and The Gap. I suggest not only further research is conducted before the author makes such wild claims in the future but parents, take control of your children, these haircuts make them look like complete and utter idiots.

Annoyed.

As a young reader who in the past had not been able to experience the glory of James Fenimore Cooper's writing, I was immensely impressed with his amazing depictions of the scenes. Armed with the biased view of the first inhabitants of this country developed through study in school, my view of the ancestors of this land changed dramatically with each page of this book. The character of Uncas, the young warrior of the Mohican race, captured my heart and I followed his tracks through the book breathlessly. I had endless confidence in the scout Hawkeye and the father of Uncas, Chingachgook. Duncan and David forever added to the flavor of the book. Every character will take on life and dance about the plot, thickening it and twirling through the words chosen by the great author Cooper. Each time I thought that I knew what would happen next, a twist would hit me unexpectedly and cause me to commend the author once again. The trials of the beautiful sisters, the fatal accuracy of "Killdeer," the calm resolution of Indian warriors, and the treachery of the Huron Magua will force you to continue reading. To miss out on the unforgettable journey James Fenimore Cooper takes you through in The Last of the Mohicans would only be your loss. This classic piece of literature will not fail to enthrall you and will take your mind through a torrent of emotions invoked by the unrivaled story-telling ability of one who is called the first great American author. Grounded in the resolution of nobility, the steadfastness of a warrior, and the basis of revenge, I guarantee that this book will take hold of your senses and not let go until you've read every last word. For your own sake, give yourself a treat and grant Cooper yet another reader.

This book is one of the greatest books that I have ever read. The reason for saying this is that the book's genre, adventure, is one of my personal favorites, plus James Fennimore Cooper is my second favorite author. The book is loaded with imagery. It sparks your imagination into picturing just exactly where you are at and who is involved in the story that could possibly be around you.

When you first start reading you get caught in the elaborate setting. You are given a straight out setting of a hot summer day in July 1757. Immediately you're imagination is caught in the building of the stories plot.

I would strongly recommend this book to all ages. This book gives you some history and a lot of rising-falling action to keep you reading. There is no strong language but there is some death. It can be overcome, to read a great book. You will more than likely be stunned by the ending, because ... you'll have to read it to find out.

Once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. There are so many twists, surprises, and exciting spots in the book that you will want to read the rest of what is happening. Before you know what has happened you are lurched into another portion of the exciting plot. It is well written with several leads to each part of the book. You will end up wanting to read the story again to see what you missed the first time through.

This is a book that captures the imagination of young and old. Mr. Cooper's descriptions of the wilderness and his familiarity with Indian lore are captivating. Cooper's plotting skills which manifest themselves in his stories, is incredible! This is a rip-roaring read that will keep you turning pages well into the night. His characters are also unforgettable. The relationship that develops between Hawkeye and his Indian friend Chingachgook is wonderfully told. This is an action story that could arguably be the first of the modern-day adventure story genre. It's hard to believe that this one was written in 1826.

It is easy to see that the modern action hero owes everything to Natty Bumppo. This is the best of the Leatherstocking Tales, though "Pathfinder" and "Deerslayer" are good too. "The Prairie" has its merits, but Natty is very old in that one, and "The Pioneers", the first to be published, deals only with Bumppo as a supporting character.

"Last of the Mohicans", however, is a masterpiece of romantic fiction, and the birth of the American action novel. Cooper's knowledge of the American Indian is not always accurate, but it is easy to see the genesis of many legends that surrounded Native Americans in American lore into the 20th century in this and other books from the Leatherstocking Tales. The language is antiquated and may be a bit difficult for younger readers, but it is worth it.

Also, a note on the film: The Daniel Day-Lewis movie is good--I enjoy that too, but it is incredibly different from the book. It is only VERY loosely based on Cooper's work, and Cooper's is unquestionably better.

If you are curious as to why this book is regarded as a "classic", pick it up. I hope you get as much from it as I did.

Perhaps it is because I had such high expectations for this book, but I was extremely disappointed. Cooper demonstrates good charatcer development, but the characters themselves are unbelievable. The characters perform fantastic feats, such as tricking a hostile group of indians into thinking that one character is a bear, that we now recognize as being totally ridiculous. At the time it was written it was most likely commonplace for authors to prey upon the ignorance of their readers and I'm afraid Cooper did just that with this novel. The novel would be much more enjoyable if the reader had absolutely no knowledge of the eastern tribes of native americans or of the colonial lifestyle. In a nutshell, the good guys are too good and the bad guys are too bad, but it is still worth reading.

This book is wonderful. The movie is equally wonderful. This is one of the rare cases when a movie and a book are BOTH enjoyable. If you enjoyed the movie, then reading the book is a necessity.
The movie portrays an entirely different main character than does the book, and it is important to understand that Old Leather Stockings is a man the age of 70. The Last of the Mohicans is the last story in a collection of tales, and if one loses sight of that, then all is lost.
This story is a wonderful tale about love and war--two of human natures most powerful forces. We are led on a sad journey where a man's seed dies with him, and the impact that has on the psyche.
I loved this book, and could not stop reading it. Perhaps it takes a more mature eye to understand and/or appreciate the meaning in this novel. I also am a major in English, and I feel that this book has more to offer than meets the eye, you need only have the key to open the treasure chest.

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper is a narrative told in the third
person. It has many action, fighting scenes, and times when the characters do nothing.
The story follows a group of English around the wilderness while encountering many
obstacles.
The story is set during the French and Indian War in northern America. The
setting is important because the frontier gives a sense of danger to the story. Also, the
war brings an atmosphere of kill or be killed. The characters have to be careful who they
trust.
The characters in the novel are not very believable. The characters are either
totally good or totally evil, there are none in between. Cooper provides a stereotype when
portraying the Indians. The only good Indians in this story are the Mohicans which are
dying out. The rest of the Indians are portrayed as savages.
Cooper's characterization is indirect. The Characters are developed through
actions, not background. When a new character is being introduced, they are described
with out a name. Then, after they have been left out for a while, the characters are
referred to by name. This along with the fact that many characters have more than on
name often causes confusion.
The language of The Last of the Mohicans is very out dated. The book was
written in the 1500s. This makes the language very difficult. Also, this time period used
more words to explain a scene than it would today. This makes the slower scenes drag
on. The action scenes move faster but still are slow going due to language.
The Last of the Mohicans is a good book, although it is difficult to read.
Language and Cooper's style of writing make the book difficult to read, and at times
boring. Despite this, the novel was still a good book. The book is appropriate for a
person at the college level.

The Last of the Mohicans was a great book in sense of adventure and intrigue. It got down to the raw life of the people back in its time and really was detailed to where you could have a vivid picture in your mind. The writing was intelligent and crafty, but shall I say, CONFUSING due to the fact that the language within it was unlike that of the language we use today. I had to re-read a lot of sections for the reason that the wording had me confused and I had to try to take in what Cooper really meant. I am not in to this sort of book for pleasurable reading (it was a class assignment) and I would not recommend it for the non-rustic teenage girl, but it does display a valuable piece of history. I really enjoyed the love-related aspect of the book because I enjoy romantics and I liked how put that in. Otherwise, I might have disliked the majority of the book. All in all, this book was written very well and is a valuable piece of literature, but I do not consider it a favorite and would not wish to recommend it to others of my generation for it is sort of out of date, so to speak.

This book reads quickly, and really draws you in; Cooper paints each scene vividly. It's certainly romanticized, and by modern standards it's racist and sexist (which is understandable considering when Cooper wrote this book). Despite that, it's a great book. Uncas, the young Mohican warrior, is awesome and honorable. Cora, the main female character, has great attitude and stands up for herself. As a small warning, this book is actually more graphic than the movie version--I had to literally put the book down and focus my mind on something else to calm down after a certain part. I don't know, maybe other people aren't as bothered by that kind of thing. I definitely recommend this book, though. It is exciting to read!

This is one of the great pieces of literature on early America. It is a work of both fact and fiction, masterfully blended together the way only a true writer can. It should be read by one and all at least once in life to get a true understanding of life here before America existed.

It should be noted that this book is not for the novice reader. It is an American classic, and as such comes long before the pagentry that one is used to with Hollywood. It will open you mind up to life on the frontier, the first frontier, the East Coast where Indian nations were crowded into thick forests and majestic mountain ranges with lakes and rivers cutting through. If you have seen the movie, you will find this better. If you haven't seen the movie, you'll understand why this book makes the movie pale in comparison.

I am a High School student and have read “The Last of the Mohicans” for my American Studies Class. We just finished studying the Native Nations and I have read a few articles on the Native Americans. The Last of the Mohicans, written by James Fenimore Cooper, is the paramount of American Literature. Unlike other books of its time, it ignores the stereotypes and common misconceptions of the Native Americans, concentrating only on reality. Throughout the book Cooper outlines his views on race, love and hatred between individuals from different groups within the American society of that time.

The story is set in the French and Indian War. The two daughters of Colonel Munro set off into the wilderness to meet their father in Fort William Henry. They are accompanied by Major Heyward, and are guided by Magua, an Indian. They meet the scout Hawkeye and his companions Chingachgook and Uncas in the forest. The last of the Mohicans is about the treachery, loyalty, challenges, and allegiances that this group encounters during this perilous journey through the wilderness.

This book might be a challenge for many readers, since the language used is not common in present-day literature. However once the reader overcomes this barrier, the true power and complexity of this story reveals itself. Cooper does not label Indians as savages in this story; instead, he shows the honorable side of them, such as the bravery and determination of Uncas, or the wit and intelligence of Chingachgook. He also presented the interaction between races, for example the doomed relationship between Uncas and Cora. Cooper’s writing style is extremely detailed and vivid. His description of fighting scenes and the emotions of individuals lets the reader experience the incident as if they were watching the event personally.

The Last of the Mohicans is an extremely well written master piece by James Fenimore Cooper. In the book Cooper illustrates the greatness of Native Americans. He also outlines his views on race, love and hatred between certain groups of individuals during the French and Indian War. This book is great for people interested in understanding Native American culture, but be prepared for a fairly challenging read.

While "The Last of the Mohicans" by James Fennimore Cooper is considered to be a classic novel that everyone should read, I suggest otherwise. Granted, once I finally became adapted to reading Cooper's overly exaggerated descriptive scenes, and could sift through the endless lines of details, I grew to enjoy the story.
In "The Last of the Mohicans," a group of travelers consisting of a singer, a Major of the British army, two general's daughters, and an Indian guide decide to take a shortcut to meet up with the girl's fathers at a distant British camp. The Indian guide leads them off trial and they wander around the wilderness until two other Indians, Uncas and Chicangook, as well as their white companion Hawk -Eye, decide to guide them to their destination. Along the way the travelers go through everything from a battle to two separate kidnappings. Overall the story was enjoyable but It dragged on several hundred pages longer than it had to be.
In short, I recommend "The Last of the Mohicans" to a true fan of 1800 era war and Native stories who have enough time on their hands to read the 430 page novel and enjoy the language used some 200 years ago.

With the possible exception of Moby Dick, this book tested my stamina as a reader more than any other. Yes, it is a great adventure story but it is written in a convoluted prose style that was outdated in even Cooper's time. I was inspired to read this book by watching the Michael Mann film. If you go into this story expecting it to be sort of a novelization of the film, you'll probably be disappointed.

"The Last of the Mohicans" is a novel for the ages and its hero Hawkeye is a man who teaches life lessons with each page you turn. Many people believe that this novel has outlived its worthiness but once turn of the pages will reveal to the reader a world that is both savage and young, characters that are both civilized and savage, and a story that harkens back to the beginnings of the new world. Cooper's language is hard to swallow sometimes, and the movie is easier to watch, but the reader who settles into the pages of Hawkeye's life and world is rewarded with lessons about friendship, love, survival and the rite of passage that all people go through. It is a definite must read for both English and History classes as it explores the beginnings of this great country in which we live.

Everyone knows the story of 'Last of the Mohicans', presumably from watching the Daniel Day-Lewis film. But what surprised me is how poor the novel by James Fenimore Cooper is. Two-dimensional characterisation (eg Duncan Heyward - gallant hero?) worsens a tale which seems to lack any proper structure apart from shoving in as many scenes of fighting and dramatic escape as possible. There are positive elements, such as the cunning but subtle personage of Magua and the basic premise of battles in the forested wilderness of North America. Perhaps that is why the recent film version is so much better - it takes all the good parts of the book, adds some new ideas and mixes them together.

The Last of the Mohicans taken as part of the series which includes the Pathfinder and The Pioneers is a brilliant adventure novel.

The author, James Fenimore Cooper, never meant the novels to be taken as historical texts. Still, he paints a world as vividly as Tolkien ever did. Only Cooper's American frontier can be understood by any American middle school student.

Like the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Cooper's Last of the Mohicans and other works deserve to be a part of every American child's passage into adulthood.

This book has a powerful tale. It is just difficult for modern readers to read. Once I got used to his style of writing I liked Cooper's plot and characterization. I fell in love with Scout and Chingagook. I didn't want anything to happen to them. This book is a classic because it puts a story in the context of a time period and does it well. Again, its only downfall is its language, but that goes with the territory.

THIS BOOK WAS GREAT, VERY DETAILED WITH HISTORY, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, AND PLOT. THE IDEA OF AMERICAN INDIAN WARS IS A AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE AMERICAN HISTORY. THERE IS A GOOD ROMANTIC ANGLE IN THE BOOK AND THE PEOPLE WHO COME TOGETHER TO FIGHT THE NATIVE AMERICANS REALIZE WHAT THE TRUE ENENMY COULD CHANGE.

Years ago I spent some time reading certain classic novels I had never read before. Last of the Mohicans was one of them. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The movie The Last of the Mohicans was a fantastic adaptation of this novel. Overall, a very good read.

Interessant! Gibt gute Einsichre von Amerika im frühen 18. Jahrhundert. Well written, but very abbreviated translation of James Fenimore Cooper's classic The Last of the Mohicans. Portions removed are mostly long descriptions of the scenery and some philosophical and political musings.

I read The Last of the Mohicans for my English class. I found the first few chapters difficult to read, but as the book progressed I became accustomed to the 1800s style of writing. Once used to Cooper's writing, I cruised through the book with keen interest. Survival in the forest with hostile Indians is the idea, fighting through a few skirmishes. I am impressed with the skills Cooper bestows his characters, and enjoy learning of the Indians. The characters become well-known as reading progresses, and near the end of the novel I knew I had chosen a good book. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys an interesting writing style and a good outdoor adventure. The only bad part in the book is in the end, which I wouldn't be mean enough to relate as of yet. Stick with the first few chapters, and surely you'll enjoy it!

I just think it is a shame that it seems that no version of "The Last of the Mohicans" is on a reading list in public schools any longer. The "Trail of Tears" and "Squanto" seem to be required reading in the Mid-Atlantic public schools.

This book is a very well-written and amazing book. To be honest, it was hard to start out (because I didn't get used to Cooper's method of writing), but once I was a chapter or two into it, it was quite excellent. The portrayal and story and characters were all admirably well designed and I am glad I bought it.

well, as I said, if you have watched the film and then read the book, you will probably be disappointed... I am not saying this is a bad book...I enjoyed reading it, but I watched the film first, so it kinda ruined my enjoyment of the book...the book itself is classic and I would reconmand you to read it. :)

Last of the Mohicans is one of the more accessible Deerslayer novels, I'll grant. But to call it unreadable and boring because no one can understand it is just plain unfair. I suggest if you find this book difficult then try acclimating yourself to more modern uses of the language at first. T.H. White is a wonderful place to start, then maybe some Patrick O'Brian, on to Dickens, maybe the Morte D'Arthur, etc... The main thing here is, of course, to get used to reading different (older) forms of the English language. Once you get into it, it's really a great experience. There's such a wealth of imagery and culture and history in this book that it'd be a shame to ignorantly toss it off as elitist or unnecessary. Just the opposite: it's mind expanding and greatly insightful. And a whole lot of fun!

This was a good story. It was completly different from the film. At first the language is a little challenging, I found myself re-reading passages to understand them better. After about 50 pages the reader understands it and the book comes to life. I enjoyed this story about Hawk Eye and his companions. It makes me want to buy the other books in the Leatherstocking Tales and read them as well.

I thought that this was an excellent study of the European-Indian relationships and intertribal relationships among the Americam Indians. There are some gruesome scenes; I feel it is probably a fairly accurate account of practices at that time amongst those tribes. At times the narrative gets wordy because of the details of the history and traditions. I can't believe this book was taught in the 5-8 grades in this country 30 years ago. I don't think the majority of 12th graders could read this book with ease.

Having read this classic many years ago, I had the opportunity to read it to my children again. It still raised my imagination, leaving the feeling of the deep woods and crafty, dangerous indians lurking about. It is a great adventure, with immortal characters, burdened with their own faults and fates. Cooper was a masterful storyteller if somewhat historically inaccurate, for his readers enjoyment. The noble savage as portrayed here swept the country's imagination for many decades.
George E. Miller, author of The Lone War Cry

I hear the word boring used often when reviewing a book. In an age where we are bombarded with so much sensory stimulation of all kinds, reading classic literature can seem rather dull. The key is to put the book in the context in which it was written and avoid critiquing it to death. Read this book with an open mind.

This book greatly renewed my interest in colonial history. Within two days of reading it I got into my car and drove to the Fort William Henry historical site (which is now bordered by an amusement park and hotel, but that is another story). Standing there at the Fort, it was a wonderful feeling trying to picture some of the scenes from the book. Or, of Fenimore Cooper being there in the early 1820's, looking for inspiration for the text. Forget the movie, it doesn't do the story justice!

This is my most beloved adventure/romance; however, it took me about the first 50 pages to "catch the groove" of Fenimore Cooper's writing style. In that way, the writing style is much like Henry James. If you can "acclimate" to the style, you're in for a treat.

I know this book is a classic, and James Fenimore Cooper sought to fatten these pages with epic sagas of Indian and White-Men wars, placing special emphasis on the pride of every Indian tribe and their greatly diverse natures. He succeeded. The proud and somewhat glorious adventures of these doomed warriors is on every page. The Indian tribes are richly described in their bravery and cunning at war, their knowledge of the land they love and know so much better than the White Man. In the wilderness of the 16th century, we have the Mohicans and the Mingos at war with each other and the white man. It is significant to the author to point out the last of the great Mohican tribe as a symbolic reference that, during this time frame, one tribe at least was near extinction, an omen and future yet to befall the rest of the "owners" of a country much loved and revered by the Indian. What becomes tough for the reader to sort out is this: Some tribes are referred to by three different names - or more, and within these tribes, some Indians themselves by many names. Adventure and fighting are abundant of course, and James Fenimore Cooper even adds a bit of romance and intrigue as a quest for two loved ones underlies much of the story. I am sorry to say I was lost in trying to keep it all straight, and the book put me to sleep more often than not. Still, if you are an adventure lover and particularly interested in 16th century sagas, you may thrill to these pages. If not, it's a pretty good sleeping pill.

This book is an excellent read. Anyone who enjoys stories of Indian wars will love this novel. With romance and action-packed suspense with story line fits this book perfectly. James Fenimore Cooper's does a great job with the book and entices anyone who has reads it. Hawkeye acurate aim, Chingachgook's nativity, Uncas's daring thoughts, Alice's innocence, Cora's strength in mind and spirit, and Duncan's courage and love for Alice makes the book extremely breathtaking. Magua, is the evil Huron warrior who is a great enemy. His unusual love for Cora makes him extremely eery. Maguas is determined to destroy the last of the Mohicans.

I adore the movie & wanted to love the book, but just couldn't. It just seemed monotonous & flat, almost too detailed sometimes in a boring way ... like Moby Dick (sorry to fans). I had to force myself to finish it, there wasn't enough complexity or realism to the characters but perhaps that is because I saw the movie first so had high expectations. I always recommend reading the book if you watch a movie based on one & usually the book is better, but for me this was the exception.

This book has lost none of its flavor. The writing is wonderfully lyrical, and the plot is set at a breathless pace. It may be old, but it still reads as well as ever. It deserves the place history has given it.

It's hard to imagine that this novel was written over a hundred years ago, because its daring message of anti-imperialism and its detailed and sensitive study of the Native American culture. Apparently, a hundred years later, the interracial romance was still too taboo for Hollywood, so this theme was white-washed. The movie also reduced the complex Indian characters to cardboard cartoons. Read the original literary masterpiece when your brain is active, and watch the movie when your brain is near-dead.

I'm a junior in high school and recently read lotm for an advanced english 3 class. I found it some what wordy and very drawn out. Some where buried underneath a mound of words that I struggled to understand was an interesting and historical plot. I really liked the plot and time setting, but I don't think Cooper's style of writing was intended for my generation. I would definately mention the reading of this book to an adult who appreciates american classics, but I wouldn't even admitt reading it to a younger person.

Any book illustrated by N.C. Wyeth is worth having. I have 6 classics illustrated by this great painter, and I find all of them a letdown if I read them after looking at the illustrations. The stories never live up to this master, and Cooper's classic is no exception.

Many will ooh and ah at the bombast that abounds in nearly every sentence, feeling as if they are reading something extraordinary. Nevertheless, it is nothing more than bombast. Certainly, many authors are know for flourishing prose, and even some grandiosity, but this is much more than that. It is almost as if the writer were a speaker who has fallen in love with his own voice, and simply does not want the delightful sound to end. The novel is rendered unreadable by this nonsense. Fortunately, this story happens to be subject to a rare exception in the arts: the film is superior to the novel. For once in a rare occasion it can be said: skip the book, watch the movie.

The Last of the Mohicans ranks on the lower tier of classics I have read. Cooper's style is tedious, and the captivating action scenes that are so abundant in the movie are few and far between in the novel. I will admit, I enjoy excerpts of Cooper's works, and the plot, if it wasn't so drawn out, would be engaging. You can spare yourself from 400 pages of monotony and excruciating discernment by just reading a couple of pages from the climactic scenes. Although I rarely do this, I can unhesitantly say that in this instance, the movie is far better than the book.

I grew up reading the Longstockings Saga. As an African American mixed with Native American, there was much pain in my reading. I thought that this was a true image of the Native American, whites, and the few Negroes who were mentioned. Although Chingachgook and his son, Uncas are depicted as proud and pure, they never seemed to be equal to Deerslayer.

I also bought the DVD with Daniel Day-Lewis, in which Uncas dies and there is a painful speech given at the end which offers no hope for the Native American. Then I read the introduction of Stephen Railton. What a revelation tnat was! How much research did John Fenimore Cooper do on the Native American tribes he describes as being so terrible in his writing? I can remember trembling as a young student reading of his Mingo

warriors! Mr. Railton sheds much light and truth on the subject... Yes, the Last of the Mohicans is an exciting story, but it would have been better well research, with honest views of that period.

James Fenimore Cooper is revered as one of the greatest american writers...and with a good reason.The last of the Mohicans is a tale full of heroism,sacrifice,honor,love and just about every other intense human feeling.By the time you turn the last page you will feel moved by this great story set in 1757 America.This is a classic I'd highly recommend to just about everyone.

Last of the Mohicans is the initial volume in a series of books that trace Natty Bumpo's adventures at the frontier of a rapidly expanding Amaerica. Although Cooper never spent time on the frontier he writes engagingly of the vicissitudes and attitudes of frontiersman.

This is an adventure story that all American children should read.

When I was 8 years old this was the book, at that time from the local library, that turned me on to reading. I have been looking for a copy in good condition, with the original cover and Wyeth endpapers for the last several years.

The book was as described by the owner.

I am pleased with my purchase.

Widely known as a classic literary tale of adventure, The Last of the Mohicans is a story that contains strong Christian models of men and women that have since been long abandoned in today's western culture and even addresses the issue of the salvation of man as an underlying theme. The heroes and heroines are characters that reflect the image of what God intended men and women to be. The heroes are brave, selfless, and untamed while the heroines are gentle yet strong and possess a depth of beauty that dwells far beneath the surface of their skin. The author, James F. Cooper, inserts a popular Christian argument that continues to this day, "Will God save a good if he has not heard and accepted the Gospel?"

The heroes of Cooper's tale are the embodiment of courage, bravery, and selfless masculinity. The three leading men of this story are developed into heroes from the very beginning as they happen to come across a unit of British soldiers under attack, accompanied by the two beautiful daughters of a British Colonel. These three men, Chingachgook (the father), Uncas (the son), and Nathaniel (the scout), selflessly come to the aid of the travelers and without hesitation, risking life and limb for total strangers. The Mohicans and their companion are compelled by their nature to ensure the safety of the survivors of the attack by escorting them to their destination. The adventures that follow all provide a series of opportunities for the men to make decisions in which they must either preserve themselves, or risk their comfort and safety for the well-being of others. The Mohicans being considered outsiders to those they have aided, a strange friendship and understanding is formed between two very different cultures through the trials they willfully share with each other.

The daughters of Colonel Munro, Cora and Alice, are presented with a strong and noble femininity that is not in the least bit demeaning. They possess a soft and delicate nature that is captivating yet respected. This does not mean that they are by any means portrayed as being weak either, as is seen in the courage with which they endure their captivity under Magua, the villainous Huron chief. On more than one occasion Cora stands up to Magua in defiance of his vengeful nature and cruel actions. This is quite a feat considering that Magua is a warrior of great prowess who also commands his own following of Huron warriors. They follow the paths of the men with strength and resolve, seldom complaining and often times strengthening the resolve of their protectors by their mere presence. They endure one hardship after another, trusting in the knowledge, experience, and courage of their deliverers without losing the beauty of their inherent feminine nature.

The subtle argument over man's salvation in the eyes of God does not take up many pages, but is a powerful theme throughout the book when considering the accounts around which the argument is based. The argument takes place in the form of an interesting dialogue between Nathaniel, the scout, and a traveling minister who happened to be with the British caravan that was rescued. Nathaniel's side of the argument is that people such as the Mohicans, will be looked upon favorably by God for their selfless and noble actions. The minister, on the other hand, argues that if they do not hear and accept the Gospel, God will not save them regardless of their selfless nature and actions. The conversation is heated at times, but never disrespectful. Valid claims of truth are presented in such a way that both characters, as well as the reader, must agree upon. While neither characters come to an agreement on the matter as a whole, they share a humble respect for one another's beliefs.

Cooper's tale has provided readers with an excellent story that reflects the finer qualities of it's characters under adverse circumstances. While not necessarily intended, Cooper has provided and adventure of hardship and sacrifice that serves as a backdrop for the development of characters that possess God given qualities that we often read about in Scripture. Both the men and women are very different, yet each possess qualities that complement each other in a way that creates a beautiful story of Godly compassion. The truth on either side of the argument of who God's salvation is for is an argument that will continue beyond the pages of the book, but it presents some valid truths that are quite thought provoking, to say the least.

This was a book I always wanted to read. Growing up I would quite frequently hear the phrase, "The Last of the Mochicans." I had great difficulties reading this book. I believe one difficulty was the writers style was of his time period. Readers of his era would better understand and enjoy that style. Another difficulty was the names of the Indian characters. In learning about Native Americans, I'm afraid I focused way too much on western Native Americans. This is understandable since I've always lived in the western United States, but I also believe Hollywood has influenced me to think of the Native American as primarily of the West. So when reading about east coast Native Americans I felt a little unprepared. What I did enjoy was the imagery, you could tell Mr. Cooper appreciated nature and wild areas. Although it didn't sweep me of my feet, it was still a good read.

The Last of the Mohicans by J.Fenimore cooper. This book is a novel about a Native American tribe called the mohicans and their dying population. I didnt like this book at all. It wasn't that exciting, there wasn't that much fighting, and it never really grabed my attention. The plot never really appeared in the book untill a 1/3 of the way in. this book is like me because the Mohicans fought for what they belived in. i'd relate this book to the Cherokee Indians becaus they were forced out of their homes in the east coast and ended the trail in Oklahoma. In the Last of the Mohicans the Mohicans fought for their land and to survive. I would recommed this book to people who like history and peace between humans. I would also like to recommend this book to people who like Native American stories.

it is a very good book but the english that it is written in is different from the way we speak today. I enjoy the book and will recommend it to everyone looking for something that is good to read and to all children for their classes that require reading books.

For those who didn't like the novel, you should look for a very old and humorous review of Cooper's work by none other than Mark Twain. I found it surprisingly in the preface pages of another paperback I own by the author.

YUCK! Even when reading it as a child, I was stunned by the obviousness of the racism in that one. I know that Cooper was a product of his time, but still wow, how silly condescending some people over the other races can get? Not to mention at least a little bit of a research. I'm no expert on River People (Mohicans) but whoever is starring in that novel was not the last of them for the simple reason that these people exist to the very this day. Obviously the author confused Mohicans with Mohegans, who are completely different people from completely different area (modern day Connecticut) and who are indeed do not exist as a separate nation today (at least not as recognized one). And this is just the beginning of everything that is wrong with this book (the Huron bad guy is also ridiculously not representing his Wyandot people as those were almost matriarchal society and his treatment of a woman involved came completely out of character with this specific culture involved. But of course, why would Cooper know any of it? I suppose to write an action-adventure story in an exotic-to-his-audience setting was more important than to do even a little bit justice to the people he bothered to write about.)

If you've seen the 1992 movie "Last of the Mohicans" with Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. The movie is an almost completely different story from the book, and if you ask me, the movie is a much better adaptation. The movie will ruin the book for you.

In the book, the characters are prety one dimentional, with Hawkeye doing nothing but bragging how many Hurons he killed with his rifle, Cora doing nothing but being a damsel in distress in one scene after another, Major Hayward doing nothing but showing how incompetant he is in the woods, and all of them speaking in the exact same confusing monotone as every other character does. It's as if Cooper didn't think to actually create any distinctive personalities for his characters. Compare that to the movie, which has the grizzled woodsman who resists anything remotely resembling authority, the sheltered girl who eventually opens her eyes to the brutal realities of the frontier, and the stuffy army officer whose manhood is being threatened by a rival. I didn't mention any names, but you already knew exactly which character was which.

Even Cooper's own literary peers comment how banal this work is. In the back of the book, Mark Twain comments how, whenever the characters are required to remain silent in a scene, someone is bound to step on a dry twig and have everyone within two hundred yards hear it and come running.

It's not a horrible read, mind you, but after seeing the movie this book does little more than make you wonder what all the hype is about over this book. It may have been great for readers back in Cooper's day but I'd be amazed if this would ever get published today.