''The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path'' (1841) was
James Fenimore Cooper's last novel in his ''
Leatherstocking 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
Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the '' Leatherstocking Tales''.
Fictional biography
Natty Bumppo, the child of white parents, grew up among Delawar ...
. The novel's setting on
Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of ''
The Pioneers'', the first of the ''Leatherstocking Tales'' to be published (1823). ''The Deerslayer'' is considered to be the
prequel 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 five ''Leatherstocking Tales''.
Plot
![American Pioneer Life pg 34 The Release of Hutter and Hurry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/American_Pioneer_Life_pg_34_The_Release_of_Hutter_and_Hurry.png)
This novel introduces Natty Bumppo as "Deerslayer": a young
frontiersman
A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts ...
in early 18th-century New York, who objects to the practice of
taking 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 former pirate 'Floating Tom' Hutter, to whom Deerslayer is introduced ''en route'' to a rendezvous with the latter's lifelong friend Chingachgook (who first appeared as "Indian John" in ''The Pioneers''). Shortly before the rendezvous, Hutter's residence is besieged by the indigenous Hurons, and Hutter and March sneak into the camp of the besiegers to kill and scalp as many as they can; but are captured in the act, and later ransomed by Bumppo, Chingachgook, and Hutter's daughters Judith and Hetty. Bumppo and Chingachgook thereafter plan to rescue Chingachgook's kidnapped
betrothed
An engagement or betrothal is the period of time between the declaration of acceptance of a marriage proposal and the marriage itself (which is typically but not always commenced with a wedding). During this period, a couple is said to be ''fi ...
Wah-ta-Wah (alias 'Hist') from the Hurons; but, in rescuing her, Bumppo is captured.
![American Pioneer Life pg 38 Hurry struggles with the indians but is finally captured](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/American_Pioneer_Life_pg_38_Hurry_struggles_with_the_indians_but_is_finally_captured.png)
In his absence, the Hurons invade 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; and they are all saved at last when March returns with English reinforcements, who massacre the Hurons and mortally wound Hetty. 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.
Criticism
The brunt of
Mark Twain's satire and criticism of Cooper's writing, "
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses
"Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" is an 1895 essay by Mark Twain, written as a satire and criticism of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper. It draws on examples from '' The Deerslayer'' and '' The Pathfinder'' from Cooper's Leatherstocking ...
" (1895), fell on ''The Deerslayer'' and ''
The Pathfinder''. Twain wrote at the beginning of the essay: "In one place in ''Deerslayer'', 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." He then lists 18 out of 19 rules "governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction" that Cooper violates in ''The Deerslayer''.
Proponents of Cooper have criticized Twain's essay as unfair and distorted. 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." Similarly,
John McWilliams
John Dacher McWilliams (July 23, 1891 – March 30, 1975) was a U.S. Representative from Connecticut.
He was born in Norwich, Connecticut, to Elizabeth A. (née McClure) and John McWilliams. His father was an immigrant from Ireland. McWil ...
comments:
In
Carl Van Doren
Carl Clinton Van Doren (September 10, 1885 – July 18, 1950) was an American critic and biographer. He was the brother of critic and teacher Mark Van Doren and the uncle of Charles Van Doren.
He won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autob ...
'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.
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
called ''The Deerslayer'' "one of the most beautiful and perfect books in the world: flawless as a jewel and of gem-like concentration."
Adaptations
Comics
In January 1944
Classic 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.
Film
1913: ''The Deerslayer'', starring
Harry T. Morey
Harry Temple Morey (August 21, 1873 – January 24, 1936) was an American stage and motion picture actor who appeared in nearly 200 films during his career.
Biography
Born in Charlotte, Michigan, Morey had two brothers. Their mother was Addie C. ...
and
Wallace Reid. Filmed at
Otsego Lake, the actual setting of the novel. Filmed in 1911, released two years later.
1920: ''
The Deerslayer and Chingachgook
''The Deerslayer and Chingachgook'' (german: Der Wildtöter und Chingachgook) is the feature-length first part of the two-part 1920 German silent Western film ''Lederstrumpf'' (''Leatherstocking''), directed by Arthur Wellin and featuring Bela L ...
'', a German film with
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...
as
Chingachgook
Chingachgook is a fictional character in four of James Fenimore Cooper's five ''Leatherstocking Tales'', including his 1826 novel ''The Last of the Mohicans''. Chingachgook was a lone Mohican chief and companion of the series' hero, Natty Bumppo. ...
. This was the first part of the two-part ''Lederstrumpf'' silent film.
1943: ''
Deerslayer'', starring
Bruce Kellogg
William Bruce Kellogg (April 13, 1910 – May 22, 1967) was an American actor. He was best known for playing the title role in ''The Deerslayer''.
In the 1940s he was under contract to MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as ...
and
Jean Parker
Jean Parker (born Lois May Green; August 11, 1915 – November 30, 2005) was an American film and stage actress. A native of Montana, indigent during the Great Depression, she was adopted by a family in Pasadena, California at age ten. She in ...
.
1957: ''
The Deerslayer
''The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path'' (1841) was James Fenimore Cooper's last novel in his ''Leatherstocking Tales''. Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leathers ...
'', starring
Lex Barker
Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr. (May 8, 1919 – May 11, 1973), known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably a ...
and
Rita Moreno.
1967: ''
Chingachgook, die große Schlange
''Chingachgook, die große Schlange'' is an East German Western film. It was released in 1967, and sold 5,077,070 tickets. The title translates to Chingachgook, the Great Serpent, and starred Gojko Mitić
Gojko Mitić ( sr-Cyrl, Гојко М ...
'', an East German
Red Western
The Ostern (Eastern; , ''Istern''; or остерн) or Red Western was a film genre created in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc as a variation of the Western films that originated in the United States. The word "Ostern" is a portmanteau derive ...
from
DEFA
DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence.
Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PRO ...
studios, starring
Gojko Mitić
Gojko Mitić ( sr-Cyrl, Гојко Митић; born June 13, 1940) is a German-Serbian actor and director. He gained great popularity in the GDR as the leading actor in historical and fictional Indian personalities in numerous DEFA Indian films. ...
.
1990: ''
Зверобой'', a Soviet version.
1994: ''
''Hawkeye'' (1994 TV series)'', starring
Lee Horsley and
Lynda Carter
Lynda Jean Cordova Carter (born July 24, 1951) is an American actress, singer, and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss World USA 1972 and finished in the top 15 at the Miss World 1972 pageant.
Carter is best known as the star of th ...
, the 8th episode Out Of The Past tells how Henry March came to kill Natty Bumppo after Judith's death, fifteen years of the events of The Deerslayer.
Radio
In 1932, the ''Leatherstocking Tales'' were adapted as a thirteen-part
serial radio drama. It is directed and performed by Charles Fredrick Lindsay and contains both ''Deerslayer'' and ''Last of the Mohicans''.
TV
A made-for-television film was released in 1978. The film was directed by
Richard Friedenberg
Richard Friedenberg is an American screenwriter and film director. He wrote the screenplay for '' A River Runs Through It'' (1992), starring Brad Pitt, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and the screenplay for the Hallmark Hall of ...
and starred
Steve Forrest as Hawkeye.
References
Further reading
*Rowland Hughes: "The Deerslayer, or The First War Path". In: Christopher John Murry: ''Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850''. Routledge, 2013, ISBN 9781135455798, pp
271-273*DARNELL, D. (1979). “THE DEERSLAYER”: COOPER’S TRAGEDY OF MANNERS. Studies in the Novel, 11(4), 406–415. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29532000
*Vasile, P. (1975). Cooper’s “The Deerslayer”: The Apotheosis of Man and Nature. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 43(3), 485–507. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1461847
*Lawrence H Klibbe: ''CliffsNotes on Cooper's The Deerslayer''. HMH Books, 1970, ISBN 9780544181182
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deerslayer, The
1841 American novels
Novels by James Fenimore Cooper
American historical novels
Novels set in the American colonial era
Novels set in New York (state)
Novels set in the 1740s
American novels adapted into films
Novels adapted into comics
Novels adapted into radio programs
American novels adapted into television shows
Prequel novels