 First edition title page | |
| Author | James Fenimore Cooper |
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| Language | English |
| Series | Leatherstocking Tales |
| Genre | Adventure novel,Historical novel |
| Published | 1841 (Lea & Blanchard: Philadelphia) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback &Paperback) |
| Pages | 560 pp in two volumes |
| Followed by | The Last of the Mohicans |
The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path wasJames Fenimore Cooper's fifth and last novel published in 1841 in hisLeatherstocking Tales. Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales,Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting onOtsego Lake in central,upstate New York, is the same as that ofThe Pioneers, the first of theLeatherstocking Tales to be published (1823).The Deerslayer is considered to be theprequel to the rest of the series. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his fiveLeatherstocking Tales.
This novel introduces Natty Bumppo as "Deerslayer," a youngfrontiersman in early 18th-century New York, who objects to the practice oftaking scalps, on the grounds that every living thing should follow "the gifts" of its nature, which would keep European Americans from taking scalps. Two characters who actually seek to take scalps are Deerslayer's foil Henry March (alias "Hurry Harry") and the formerpirate 'Floating Tom' Hutter, to whom Deerslayer is introduceden route to a rendezvous with the latter's lifelong friend Chingachgook (who first appeared as "Indian John" inThe Pioneers).
Shortly before the rendezvous, Hutter's residence is besieged by the Hurons, and Hutter and March sneak into the camp of the besiegers to kill and scalp as many as they can, but they are captured in the act, and laterransomed by Bumppo, Chingachgook, and Hutter's daughters Judith and Hetty. Bumppo and Chingachgook thereafter plan to rescue Chingachgook's kidnappedbetrothed Wah-ta-Wah (alias 'Hist') from the Hurons, but while rescuing her, Bumppo is captured. In his absence, the Hurons attack Hutter's home, and Hutter is scalped alive. On his deathbed, he confesses that Judith and Hetty were not his daughters by birth, and Judith determines to discover her natural father's identity, but her search reveals only that her late mother had been of aristocratic descent, and had married 'Floating Tom' after the collapse of an illicit affair.
Later, Judith attempts and fails to rescue Deerslayer from the Hurons. They are all saved at last when March returns with British troops, who ambush the Hurons and kill most of them; Hetty is mortally wounded in the confusion. After Hetty's death, Judith proposes marriage to Deerslayer, but is refused, and is last described as the paramour of a soldier. Fifteen years later, Bumppo and Chingachgook return to the site to find Hutter's house in ruins.
The brunt ofMark Twain's satire and criticism of Cooper's writing, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (1895), fell onThe Deerslayer andThe Pathfinder. Twain wrote at the beginning of the essay: "In one place inDeerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record."[1] He then lists 18 out of 19 rules "governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction" that Cooper violates inThe Deerslayer.
Proponents of Cooper have criticized Twain's essay as unfair and distorted.[2] Cooper scholars Lance Schachterle and Kent Ljungquist write, "Twain's deliberate misreading of Cooper has been devastating....Twain valued economy of style (a possible but not necessary criterion), but such concision simply was not a characteristic of many early nineteenth-century novelists' work."[3] Similarly,John McWilliams comments:
Hilarious though Twain's essay is, it is valid only within its own narrow and sometimes misapplied criteria. Whether Twain is attacking Cooper's diction or Hawkeye's tracking feats, his strategy is to charge Cooper with one small inaccuracy, reconstruct the surrounding narrative or sentence around it, and then produce the whole as evidence that Cooper's kind of English would prevent anyone from seeing reality.[4]
InCarl Van Doren's view, the book is essentially a romance, at the same time considerably realistic. The dialect is careful, the wordcraft generally sound. The movement is rapid, the incidents varied, and the piece as a whole absorbing. The reality of the piece comes chiefly from the reasoned presentation of the central issue: the conflict in Leather-Stocking between the forces which draw him to the woods and those which seek to attach him to his human kind. Van Doren calls Judith Hutter one of the few convincing young women in Cooper's works; of the minor characters only the ardent young Chingachgook and the silly Hetty Hutter call for his notice.[5]
D. H. Lawrence calledThe Deerslayer "one of the most beautiful and perfect books in the world: flawless as a jewel and of gem-like concentration."[6]
In 1932,The Deerslayer was adapted as a thirteen-partserial radio drama as part of theLeatherstocking Tales. It was directed and performed by Charles Fredrick Lindsay and contains bothDeerslayer andLast of the Mohicans.[7]
In January 1944Classic Comics adapted the story for issue 17 of the series.
French comics artist Jean Ache adapted the story into a newspaper comic for Jeudi-Matin in 1949.[8]
The Deerslayer public domain audiobook atLibriVox| International | |
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