A NARRATIVE OF 1757
This novel, published in 1826, is widely considered to be Cooper’s masterpiece. It was hugely popular upon first publication and is the novel for which he is best known today. Continuing Cooper’s series of ‘Leatherstocking tales’ this was the second of that series to be written and printed and also the second chronologically. The novel is set during the seven years’ war, which was fought between the French and the English for possession of the American colonies. It draws on real historical personages and events, such as Lieutenant Colonel Munro and the siege of Fort William Henry, to construct an exciting narrative of daring and adventure.
It concerns the adventures of Major Duncan Heyward, Hawkeye (a younger Natty Bumppo, who previously appeared as an old man in The Pioneers), the Mohican Indian Chingachgook (also featured in that earlier novel) and Chingachgook’s son Uncas (the eponymous last of the ‘pure-blood’ Mohicans) as they struggle to protect Alice and Cora Munro – the daughters of a British colonel – from the many dangers that beset them on their way to join their father. They succeed in bringing the sisters safely to Fort William Henry, where the Colonel is garrisoned, only to become caught up in a gruesome siege. In the aftermath of this terrible episode, our heroes must struggle to rescue Cora and Alice from the villainous Magua – a French-allied Huron Indian, who has kidnapped the Colonel’s daughters and retreated with them into the wilderness of the Adirondack Mountains.
The initial suggestion for the novel came from Edward Smith-Stanley (later Lord Derby) whom Cooper was escorting on a tour. Impressed by the caves behind the Glens Falls on Lake George, Stanley suggested that these would make an excellent setting for a romance. Cooper agreed and decided to blend the notion with an idea of his own for a novel on a Native American theme. The name Uncas is taken from an actual chief of the Mohegan tribe, but Cooper would seem to have confused the ‘Mohegan’ of Connecticut with the ‘Mahican’ – a different tribe located along the Hudson River, close to the Mohawk Valley.