The Last of the Mohicans
Avon, Connecticut: The Heritage Press, 1932. Illustrated by Edward A. Wilson. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine / No dust jacket but housed in original Fine slipcase. Item #5387
A first edition for Heritage Press, published in 1932. Book is in Fine condition and is housed in a matching slipcase, also in Fine condition. No sunning or discoloration to either book or slipcover. Book spine is clean and unwrinkled, with bright gilt title, all letters intact. Book is tightly bound, with no markings or flaws internal or external, with many brightly colored illustrations throughout. Edges are sharp still. Includes the Heritage Press issued four-page gazette style insert, "Sandglass," also in Fine condition. Due to their age, these older Heritage Press editions are often found with some kind of notable flaw or damage: this one is quite lovely and in collectible condition.
A popular 19th-century writer, Cooper was referenced by a number of other famous writers, intellectuals, historians and composers as an inspiration. Rumor has it that Austrian composer Franz Schubert requested Cooper's novels on his deathbed, with Balzac, Thoreau, and Lawrence publicly expressing their admiration. Poet and writer Walt Whitman wrote in a journal entry for July 10, 1890: "Cooper at his best is always the best: very inspiriting, vitalizing... Cooper was always an outdoor influence: he is a perennial fresh air, pure seas; a living accuser of our civilization. Our civilization is anyhow a morbid one--introspective, consciously sinful. But Cooper maintained his independence, manhood, from the very first."
Cooper was not limited to adventure fiction and actively critiqued "The American Experiment" in his non-fiction writings.
In his essay "The Last of the Mohicans and the New World Fall," published by Duke University, Robert Milder critiques Cooper's novel: "Set in 1757, the novel looks backward to the time when the Indians ruled the New World and, implicitly at least, forward to the age of an agrarian republic. It focuses upon America just at the moment when it is beginning to be America, yet its dominant mood is one of loss, not celebration. Partly this loss is the Indians', but the more significant loss is that of the conquerors themselves, whose succession to the land is tainted by violence and guilt."
Price: $85.00 other currencies