The Deerslayer
1841
The year is 1740. The wilderness of upstate New York is vast, indifferent, and beautiful in ways that strip men down to their essential selves. Here, a young man known as Natty Bumppo, not yet the legend called Deerslayer, embarks on his first war-path, accompanied by the reckless Hurry Harry. But nothing has prepared him for what the frontier truly demands: the moment he must kill his first human being, the moment he faces torture at the stake, the moment he discovers that "civilized" men can be as ruthless as any enemy. Cooper's 1841 masterpiece is an initiation story stripped to its bones: a young man must shed his innocence to survive, and in doing so, discovers both the violence within himself and the fierce, untamable freedom of the wilderness that will claim his soul forever. The Deerslayer is the origin of one of American literature's most enduring characters, a man caught between worlds who has never quite belonged to either.
Editions
X-Ray
“Tis hard to live in a world where all look upon you as below them.””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“God planted the seeds of all the trees," continued Hetty, after a moment's pause, "and you see to what a height and shade they have grown! So it is with the Bible. You may read a verse this year, and forget it, and it will come back to you a year hence, when you least expect to remember it.””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“The woods are but the ears of the Almighty, the air is his breath, and the light of the sun is little more than a glance of his eye.””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes.””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“Judith:"And where, then, is your sweetheart, Deerslayer?"Deerslayer: "She's in the forest, Judith - hanging from the boughs of the trees, in a soft rain - in the dew on the open grass - the clouds that float about in the blue heavens - the birds that sing in the woods - the sweet springs where I slake my thirst - and in all the other glorious gifts that come from God's Providence!””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“If a man believed all that other people choose to say in their own favor, he might get an oversized opinion of them, and an udersized opinion of himself.””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“And where, then, is your sweetheart, Deerslayer?" "She's in the forest, Judith”
— James Fenimore Cooper
“The deer that goes too often to the lick meets the hunter at last!””
— James Fenimore Cooper
“When the colony's laws, or even the King's laws, run ag'in the laws of God, they get to be onlawful, and ought not to be obeyed.””
— James Fenimore Cooper
