James Fenimore Cooper

The Prairie James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie is the third of five historical novels to appear in his Leatherstocking series. The name Leatherstocking comes from the nickname settlers gave to the character Natty Bumppo (Trapper). Even though The Prairie is not the last of Cooper's Leatherstocking tales to appear in print, it is the concluding saga of the five books of the series. The setting of The Prairie is essential to the plot. Cooper sets this historical novel in 1804 in the Great Plains, a symbol for a place of peace. Natty Bumppo carries the nickname Trapper in The Prairie and the names Deerslayer, Pathfinder, and Hawkeye in other Cooper novels. In The Prairie, Trapper is traveling west to escape civilization and to find his ideal life in unsettled territory-real or imagined.