The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1840. It is the fourth novel Cooper wrote featuring Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero, and the third chronological episode of the Leatherstocking Tales. The inland sea of the title is Lake Ontario.

A definitive new biography of James Fenimore Cooper, early nineteenth century master of American popular fiction American author James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) has been credited with inventing and popularizing a wide variety of genre fiction, including the Western, the spy novel, the high seas adventure tale, and the Revolutionary War romance. America’s first crusading novelist, Cooper reminds us that literature is not a cloistered art; rather, it ought to be intimately engaged with the world. In this second volume of his definitive biography, Wayne Franklin concentrates on the latter half of Cooper’s life, detailing a period of personal and political controversy, far-ranging international travel, and prolific literary creation. We hear of Cooper’s progressive views on race and slavery, his doubts about American expansionism, and his concern about the future prospects of the American Republic, while observing how his groundbreaking career management paved the way for later novelists to make a living through their writing. Franklin offers readers the most comprehensive portrait to date of this underappreciated American literary icon.

In The Pilot (1824) and The Red Rover (1828), James Fenimore Cooper invented a new literary genre: the sea novel. Collected here in a single Library of America volume, they are among his finest works. Bold, vigorous, original, each is a tale of high adventure that vividly captures the majesty and power of the seafaring life. Cooper drew on his direct knowledge of ships and sailors to present a truer picture of life on the sea than had ever before achieved in literature. As a boy of seventeen he had sailed before the mast on a merchantman bound from New York to London and then to Spain. On board he experienced the life of a common seaman, learned the craft of sailing, encountered terrifying storms, was chased by pirates, and watched the impressment of crew members by a British man-of-war. He later served as an officer in the United States Navy. The Pilot is loosely based upon stories of John Paul Jones’s daring hit-and-run tactics during the Revolutionary War. The shadowy hero, modeled on Jones, leads a squadron of the infant American navy in a series of raids on the English coast, braving fierce storms and the guns of hostile warships, yet never revealing his identity. In this novel Cooper introduced the character of the “old salt,” the seasoned deckhand happy only aboard ship. Long Tom Coffin, with his briny conversation and shrewd nautical advice, is the first of Cooper’s memorable portraits of common seaman. A ghostly ship, an uncanny hero, a heroine kidnapped by pirates, revelations of mistaken identity, and the reunion of long-lost relatives—scenes of romance and adventure fill the pages of The Red Rover, Cooper’s most theatrical novel. Set in the mid-eighteenth century, the tale recounts the exploits of a noble outcast and visionary who foresees America’s destiny as a sovereign nation. Forced into a life of piracy, the Rover conducts his private war of independence in a story that equates the free and daring life with the American dream of self-reliance and liberty from British rule. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

James Fenimore Cooper is chiefly known to posterity as the author of The Last of the Mohicans, focussing on the friendship between a Native American chief and a white hunter. Cooper himself acknowledged that it was his Leatherstocking Tales which were the most likely to endure of his work; yet this estimate understates Cooper''s significance as the most prolific and internationally-read American author of the first half of the nineteenth century. Fenimore Cooper developed a distinctive style well adapted to handling frontier, military and nautical romances, which won him great popularity and gave him entry to the leading figures in post-Napoleonic Europe. In consequence he also became one of the most sophisticated political and environmentalist thinkers of his time. His explicitly political writings and politically-involved novels won him both considerable influence and formidable social rejection. His environmental worries, perceptible in many of his works, anticipate today''s concerns. Cooper was also a significant historian, and broke new literary ground in writing a biography of an ordinary sailor when such works were always concerned with the great and the good. The breadth and significance of his output remains widely under-recognised, and too many of his works hard to find. This edition of the Complete Works of Fenimore Cooper not only includes the well-known novels, but obscure early fictional works and the significant non-fictional works, including the naval histories and biographies, the pioneering biography Ned Myers, travel writing, and the political pamphlets which were of great importance in Cooper''s time. The contents of the volumes are as follows: Volume 1 (333 pp.): Precaution; Introduction to the Works by Dr. Bob Lawson-Peebles Volume 2 (335 pp.): The Spy Volume 3 (94 pp.): Tales for Fifteen Volume 4 (417 pp.): The Deerslayer (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 1) Volume 5 (316 pp.): The Last of the Mohicans (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 2) Volume 6 (378 pp.): The Pathfinder (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 3) Volume 7 (367 pp.): The Pioneers (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 4) Volume 8 (348 pp.): The Prairie (Leatherstocking Tales vol. 5) Volume 9 (342 pp.): The Pilot Volume 10 (324 pp.): Lionel Lincoln Volume 11 (351 pp.): The Red Rover Volume 12 (312 pp.): The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish Volume 13 (336 pp.): The Water-Witch Volume 14 (325 pp.): The Bravo Volume 15 (310 pp.): The Heidenmauer Volume 16 (334 pp.): The Headsman Volume 17 (309 pp.): The Monikins Volume 18 (370 pp.): Homeward Bound Volume 19 (343 pp.): Home as Found Volume 20 (374 pp.): Mercedes of Castile Volume 21 (375 pp.): The Two Admirals Volume 22 (349 pp.): The Wing-and-Wing Volume 23 (346 pp.): Wyandotte Volume 24 (117 pp.): Autobiography Of a Pocket-Handkerchief Volume 25 (387 pp.): Afloat and Ashore Volume 26 (329 pp.): Miles Wallingford Volume 27 (356 pp.): Satanstoe (Littlepage Manuscripts vol. 1) Volume 28 (340 pp.): The Chainbearer (Littlepage Manuscripts vol. 2) Volume 29 (374 pp.): The Redskins (Littlepage Manuscripts vol. 3) Volume 30 (340 pp.): The Crater Volume 31 (350 pp.): Jack Tier Volume 32 (343 pp.): The Oak Openings Volume 33 (331 pp.): The Sea Lions Volume 34 (347 pp.): The Ways of the Hour Volume 35 (94 pp.): Point de Bateaux a Vapeur, The Lake Gun, Upside Down, reviews of Sedgwick''s A New-England Tale and Irving''s Bracebridge Hall Volume 36 (455 pp.): Notions of the Americans Volume 37 (138 pp.): The American Democrat Volume 38 (215 pp.): Review of An Examination of the New Tariff, Slavery in the United States, Letter to General Lafayette, A Letter to His Countrymen, writings on the Three Mile Point controversy, American and European Scenery Compared, New York Volume 39 (124 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: Switzerland Volume 40 (220 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: The Rhine Volume 41 (238 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: France Volume 42 (248 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: England Volume 43 (239 pp.): Gleanings in Europe: Italy Volume 44 (551 pp.): History of the Navy of the United States Volume 45 (274 pp.): Naval Biographies Volume 46 (178 pp.): Ned Myers Volume 47 (294 pp.): Reviews of Clark''s Naval History of the United States, Scoresby''s Account of the Arctic Regions and Parry''s Journal of a Voyage of Discovery, Comparative Resources of the American Navy, Hints on Manning the Navy, The Edinburgh Review on James''s Naval Occurrances and Cooper''s Naval History, The Cruise of the Somers, Old Ironsides, The Battle of Plattsburg Bay Volume 48 (82 pp.): The Eclipse, Preface to Elinor Wyllys, diary extracts, The Chronicles of Cooperstown The Works have all been newly typeset for this edition. Most of the texts (Ned Myers and the novels except Tales for Fifteen and Autobiography Of a Pocket-Handkerchief) have been taken from the Iroquois Edition (New York and London: G. P. Putnam''s Sons, not dated, 33 vols.). The remainder are chiefly from print editions now in the public domain, except for A Letter to my Countrymen, The Chronicles of Cooperstown, Pas de Bateaux a Vapeur?Une Vision, Review of the Somers Mutiny Courtmartial, Upside Down; or the World in Petticoats, The Lake Gun, New York and Old Ironsides, for which the source texts are the electronic versions kindly provided by the James Fenimore Cooper Society. Dr. Bob Lawson-Peebles, Senior Lecturer at Exeter University and a leading authority on American literature and Fenimore Cooper in particular, has written a new critical introduction to the Works.

Between 1820 and 1860 a set of established cultural values deemed the "Cult of Domesticity" sought to shape the private and public lives of individuals in a rapidly changing American society. Promoting the ideals of conformity in religious, domestic and personal development, the cult was particularly concerned with maintaining a status quo of piety, purity, obedience and domesticity in 19th century female behavior. While a number a female writers responded through literature to the social standards they were urged to emulate, the prominent male writer James Fenimore Cooper reacted as well, addressing the predominant cultural climate through texts that establish women as an integral part of the plot line. This book provides a comprehensive discussion of James Fenimore Cooper's view of family dynamics and explores his attempts to simultaneously present and critique the forces shaping the social development of the nation. The study places 10 relevant Cooper novels within the context of popular literary works by 19th century writers Lydia Maria Child, Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Susan Warner and Maria Cummins to demonstrate how Cooper approaches issues of Victorian domesticity and how his representations compare to those crafted by the contemporary women writers. Opening chapters discuss why Cooper chose the women's fiction genre as his vehicle and present an overview of the "Cult of Domesticity" in fiction and nonfiction, delineating the origins and effects of 19th century domestic life. Remaining chapters address the role of the mother, the father and the central daughter figure in domestic fiction.

Within months of publishing Homeward Bound, James Fenimore Cooper continued that story in a second, stand-alone novel, Home as Found. One of the most important of his long career, Home as Found is a novel of manners in which Cooper satirized Wall Street speculation, jingoism, the penny press, and high society, writing boisterously and with a sharp but critical eye about a nation in transition. He revealed “follies and peculiarities” of the young nation, but did so with a hope that the advancing forces of democracy would not get turned aside by greed and insular nationalism. In drawing rooms, ballrooms, and Wall Street offices, Cooper sees clearly into the heart of the democratic experiment, dramatizing conflicts that we are still grappling with nearly two hundred years later. Stephen Carl Arch provides a historical introduction discussing Cooper’s composition of the novel and its politicized reception in journals and newspapers, along with detailed explanatory notes. This authoritative edition draws upon the first edition, a partial author’s manuscript, and a substantial (but not complete) amanuensis copy of the author’s manuscript; and provides a full scholarly apparatus discussing the editorial choices. It has been approved by the Committee on Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association. The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper The distinguished Cooper scholar James Franklin Beard (1919–1989) began organizing the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper in the late 1960s, as his work on publishing the monumental Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper came to fulfillment. Beard’s intention was to provide readers with sound scholarly editions of Cooper’s major works, based wherever possible on authorial manuscripts. To date, the Writings of James Fenimore Cooper has made available texts of many of Cooper’s best-known novels, as well as some of his most important works of political and social commentary.

The pathfinder: This fourth Leatherstocking tale finds the pathfinder, Natty Bumppo examining his role as an explorer for British/Colonial forces in the forests and islands around the Great Lakes. He, also falls in love for the first and only time in the novels, only to see his choice all in love with another man.