{"product_id":"coopers-leather-stocking-novels-a-secular-reading-paperback-softback-9780807857472","title":"Cooper's Leather-Stocking Novels; A Secular Reading (Paperback \/ softback) 9780807857472","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eCooper's Leather-Stocking Novels\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eA Secular Reading\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eGeoffrey Rans (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780807857472\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 20 May 2011\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e320 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.333 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eA powerful and persuasive new reading of the Leather-Stocking tales. . . . Rans's introduction and endnotes develop a brilliant commentary on Cooper criticism and issues of critical theory. This is an important contribution to Cooper scholarship and to 19th-century cultural history.--\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e|\"\"This major interpretation of James Fenimore Cooper should result in the recognition that Cooper is a truly major American writer. Moreover, Rans's book is highly readable, genuinely exciting.\"\"--Everett Emerson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|\"\"Rans's reading of the Leather-Stocking tales is a work of exceptional merit, remarkable both for its comprehensive engagement of prior criticism and for its strikingly original insights. . . . A major contribution to Cooper studies.\"\"--William P. Kelly, Graduate Center, City University of New York|\"\"The example of Geoffrey Rans should inspire a deeper and more attentive reading than Cooper has ever had before.\"\"--\u003ci\u003eAmerican Literary History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eJames Fenimore Cooper's Leather-Stocking tales, published between 1823 and 1841, are generally regarded as America's first major works of fiction. Here, Geoffrey Rans provides not simply a new reading of the five novels that comprise the series but also a new way of reading them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRans analyzes each of the five novels (\u003ci\u003eThe Pioneers\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Last of the Mohicans\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Prairie\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Pathfinder\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Deerslayer\u003c\/i\u003e) in the order in which they were originally composed, an achronological sequence in terms of the stories they tell. As events in early written novels interact with those in later ones, the reader is compelled to construct political meanings different from Cooper's ideological preferences. This approach effectively precludes reading these works as Natty Bumppo's life story, or as an aspect of Cooper's. Rans presents the series as a text that faithfully reproduces the conflicts Cooper faced, both at the time when he wrote the novels and in the history that the novels contemplate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCooper emerges as a composer of richly problematical texts for which no aesthetic resolution is possible and in which every idealization, political or poetic, is relentlessly subjected to the gaze of historical reality. The tension between potential and practice, which is apparent in the final two volumes of the tales, is present, Rans contends, from the inception of the series. Because the problems of racism and greed that Cooper addresses remained as unresolved for us as for him, Rans concludes that this reading of the Leather-Stocking tales reinforces both Cooper's central canonical position and his value as an articulator of political conflict.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"The University of North Carolina Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52555640733976,"sku":"9780807857472","price":29.26,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/coopers-leather-stocking-novels-a-secular-reading-paperback-softback-9780807857472","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}