Deerslayer. The Last of the Mohicans. Pathfinder. Pioneers. The Prairie

The book includes all five novels of the famous epic of the famous American writer James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) about Leatherstocking: "The Beastmaster, or the First Warpath", "The Last of the Mohicans, or a Narrative of the Year 1757", "The Pathfinder, or On the Shores of Ontario", "The Pioneers, or At the Headwaters of the Susquehanna" and "The Prairie". All texts are printed according to the rare edition of Giz - Grzebin, 1923 without the translator, but in the literary encyclopedia about it is stated: "The entire epic of Leatherstocking is given in full translation by I. Vvedensky, edited and annotated by M. Gorky". The edition is decorated with illustrations by famous British artists, brothers Charles Edmund Brock and Henry Matthew Brock.James Fenimore Cooper spent his childhood in the American countryside, far from the big roads and cities. Perhaps in time he would have become a prosperous landowner, but the course of his life was changed by chance. One day, as he began to read to his wife a literary novel that had arrived from across the ocean, James noticed that he could write much better. Susanna caught his eye, and as a result, in 1820. Cooper wrote a sentimental novel, Precaution. This book brought him neither success nor money, but the experience he gained made Cooper think seriously about new novels. There was a social demand for such works, because the British openly stated that the United States can never be proud of its own literature. As a result, in a few years Cooper finished writing the novel The Pioneers. His success was phenomenal, because Cooper wrote about what he knew well from childhood - the wilderness of North America and its pioneers. On the pages of "Pioneers" readers were first introduced to the pathfinder Leatherstocking and the Indian Chingachgook. Cooper was personally acquainted with only one Indian who sold his father game and fish. Other information about Indians the writer got from books and articles. However, Cooper with his writing talent skillfully combined in "Pioneers" American patriotism with accurate description of details and with a certain romanticism. This mixture ensured the success of this and his other books, which became the first bright beacons on the way to the formation of a distinctive American literature. Cooper later wrote four other Leatherstocking novels, recounting his earlier adventures. All of them are included in this edition.The illustrations in the book are by two British artists, Charles and Henry Brock. Charles was the eldest of four brothers. Together with them he established an art studio in Cambridge. Charles began illustrating books in 1890 with a special talent for black-and-white stroke drawings in which he masterfully conveyed the play of light and shadow, the movements and emotions of characters. Charles Brock was very meticulous in his attention to detail, studying the realities of the mid-18th century and early 19th century in Cambridge libraries in order to portray the characters of Cooper, Dickens and Stevenson as accurately as possible. Together with his brother Henry, he also illustrated works by Swift, Thackeray, Austen and Eliot. Yet it was as book illustrators that Charles and Henry Brockie made history. They created more than a hundred beautiful illustrations that give a glimpse of the life described by Fenimore Cooper in his novels.