James Fenimore Cooper was a pioneer of American literature. He was not only the first of his countrymen to make a living solely from the pen, but he also legitimized American themes, such as the opening of the wilderness and the costs of progress, in literature. Cooper almost single-handedly altered the conception in the minds of American readers of what made fine literature, or indeed literature in any of its guises. With his Leatherstocking Tales, which include such perennial favorites as The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer, Cooper created a distinctly American idiom--not so much in speech as Mark Twain would later do--but in content. With the creation of Natty Bumppo, the protagonist of those tales, Cooper also imagined a character, at once rugged individualist and romantic nature-lover, who has become part of the national consciousness through his clones in movies and on television. In shifting...