PS. Just saw that @thisistheheff.bsky.social's new podcast convo with @thomasruyssmith.com focuses on Last of the Mohicans as well:

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

So for the next post in my CooperStudying blog series, two profoundly different Deerslayer novels published within a year of one another, & one crucial throughline between them--Natty's willingness to fight for Native Americans.

blackwhiteandread.com/february-4-2...

200 years ago today, Cooper published The Last of the Mohicans. Long before Daniel Day-Lewis' flowing locks made the story & the character of Natty Bumppo famous, Mohicans was Cooper's best-selling Deerslayer novel. But just a year later, he published a strikingly different Natty tale, The Prairie.

youtu.be/SrcMMyNeJJs?...

PS. Today is also the birthday of my maternal grandfather Bob Fine, the son of Jewish refugees to turn-of-the-century America and part of the profoundly American legacy & story I try to live up to every day.

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2021/06/cons...

& i’ve written two additional columns about Parks, including this Juneteenth special:

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2022/06/cons...

I wrote about a link between the women’s rights and civil rights movements for my second-ever @satevepost.bsky.social Considering History column:

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/01/cons...

So for the next post in my Fenimore Cooper Studying blog series, how Cooper’s third & fourth novels exemplify my categories of historical & period fiction, respectively!

blackwhiteandread.com/february-3-2...

That pair of categories offers a very useful lens for analyzing different historical novels--& since few American authors have more consistently written such novels than did James Fenimore Cooper (the American Walter Scott, as he was often known), it's fun to think about his works through this lens.

I started a 2012 blog series on historical fiction by defining two subgenres: period fiction, works more interested in telling engaging stories that happen to be set in the past than in exploring history itself as a central focus; & historical fiction, works genuinely interested in doing the latter.

& I blogged about Blackwell’s groundbreaking life & legacy here:

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2024/01/janu...

It’s been one of the great honors of my career to publish a column in Rockwell‘s @satevepost.bsky.social for more than eight years now!

www.saturdayeveningpost.com/category/con...