The Last of the Mohicans.

Philadelphia: H. C. Carey & I. Lea,, 1826. The first American book that presented the theme that has obsessed us ever since First edition of this classic early American novel, the second book in the Leatherstocking Tales series and the work for which Cooper remains best known. It has been described as "the first book that ever made an impression on the outside world as a uniquely American book" (Fiedler) and as the earliest-published contender to the title of the "Great American Novel". The Mohicans are among the Eastern Algonquian tribes originating from the Atlantic coast of North America. Cooper based his understanding of them on the history books of John Heckewelder (1743-1823) and in the process confused some details, for example the character Uncas, with the distinct Mohegan people. Though the work became a germinal origin story in the consciousness of settlers to the New World, its participation in "The Myth of the Vanishing Indian" led the historian Francis Parkman (1823-1893) to acknowledge that "civilization has a destroying as well as a creating power" (North American Review, 1853). Volume I has the following points, as called for in BAL: page vii with the final 'i' present in the pagination, page 89 misnumbered as page 93, and Chapter XVI misnumbered as XIV. Volume II is with the fifth line of the copyright statement giving "a book" in lowercase, identified as state "B", without priority. 2 vols, duodecimo (179 x 103 mm). Contemporary mottled sheep, rebacked to style and judiciously refurbished, red spine labels, spines numbered and ruled in gilt, roll on board edges gilt, edges yellow. Bump and wear to upper corners, small worming to endpapers, foxing to contents, occasional leaves a little roughly opened. A very good set. BAL 3833; Grolier American 100, 34; Sabin 16452; Spiller & Blackburn 7. Leslie Fiedler, cited in Hillel Italie, "'Last of Mohicans' was first great American Novel", Daily Gazette, 21 Sept. 1992.