The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper

"There is no cross in my veins."

During the French and Indian War, the scout Hawkeye and his Mohican friends, Chingachgook and Uncas, try to guide two British sisters to safety through the wilderness of upstate New York. They face ambush, capture, and betrayal in a landscape of breathtaking beauty and violence, leading to a tragic climax.

Cooper's novel is the first great American frontier adventure. It created the myth of the noble woodsman and the vanishing Indian. It explores the conflict between civilization and nature, establishing themes that would haunt American literature and westerns for centuries.