I.Early Fiction James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851):Cooper's The Pioneers was the first of the five great romances known as the Leather- Stocking Tales.The author introduced in The Pioneers the fabulous woodsman,Natty Bumppo.He was the forerunner of all heroic forest scouts,bear hunters,and cowboys of later American novels and films.The Last of the Mohicans,The Prairie,The Pathfinder,and The Deerslayer pursued Natty's career both forward and backward in time,from the first flush of manhood to his death as an old man on the western plains. He also imagined a bi-cultural and bi-racial friendship between Natty Bumppo and a Native American warrior, thereby projecting the fulfillment of the democratic dream which persists in American literature.I. Early Fiction • James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851): Cooper’s The Pioneers was the first of the five great romances known as the Leather￾Stocking Tales. The author introduced in The Pioneers the fabulous woodsman, Natty Bumppo. He was the forerunner of all heroic forest scouts, bear hunters, and cowboys of later American novels and films. The Last of the Mohicans , The Prairie, The Pathfinder, and The Deerslayer pursued Natty’s career both forward and backward in time, from the first flush of manhood to his death as an old man on the western plains. He also imagined a bi-cultural and bi-racial friendship between Natty Bumppo and a Native American warrior, thereby projecting the fulfillment of the democratic dream which persists in American literature