The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prairie, by J. Fenimore Cooper

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Title: The Prairie

Author: J. Fenimore Cooper

Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6450]
Posting Date: June 5, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE ***

Produced by Grant Macandrew and Jennifer Lee

THE PRAIRIE

By J. Fenimore Cooper

INTRODUCTION

"The Prairie" was the third in order of Fenimore Cooper's
Leatherstocking Tales. Its first appearance was in the year 1827. The
idea of the story had suggested itself to him, we are told, before he
had finished its immediate forerunner, "The Last of the Mohicans." He
chose entirely new scenes for it, "resolved to cross the Mississippi and
wander over the desolate wastes of the remote Western prairies." He had
been taking every chance that came of making a personal acquaintance
with the Indian chiefs of the western tribes who were to be encountered
about this period on their way in the frequent Indian embassies to
Washington. "He saw much to command his admiration," says Mrs. Cooper,
"in these wild braves... It was a matter of course that in drawing
Indian character he should dwell on the better traits of the picture,
rather than on the coarser and more revolting though more common points.
Like West, he could see the Apollo in the young Mohawk."

When in July, 1826, Cooper landed in England with his wife and family,
he carried his Indian memories and associations with him. They crossed
to France, and ascended the Seine by steamboat, and then settled for
a time in Paris. Of their quarters there in the Rue St. Maur, Sarah
Fenimore Cooper writes:

"It was thoroughly French in character. There was a short, narrow,
gloomy lane or street, shut in between lofty dwelling houses, the lane
often dark, always filthy, without sidewalks, a gutter running through
the centre, over which, suspended from a rope, hung a dim oil lamp or
two--such was the Rue St. Maur, in the Faubourg St. Germain. It was a
gloomy approach certainly. But a tall porte cochere opened, and suddenly
the whole scene changed. Within those high walls, so forbidding in
aspect, there lay charming