- Title: The Pioneers
- Author: James Fennimore Cooper
- Publisher: President Publishing Company
- Estimated year of printing: c. 1915
Notes:
No copyright or publishing dates given.
The Pioneers was first published in 1823, and is part of The Leatherstocking Tales. The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of 5 books set in the 1700’s which tell the story of a frontiersman in the Iroquois area of central New York. The most well known of the books is The Last of the Mohicans, which has since been adapted into movies and television shows. The Pioneers is chronologically the fourth, but was the first of the books to be published. I have another book from this series, The Prairie, in my collection (a 1900 printing).
Much like The Prairie, this book was particularly hard to date — even harder, in fact. It contains no publishing or copyright dates. The publishing company, President Publishing, must not have existed for very long, as I couldn’t find any information about it at all to help narrow down the publishing date. The only clue I could find was a collection of Shakespeare’s works for sale online also published by President, which had a copyright of 1909. That gives a good idea of when President was active, and if my guess is correct that it was a short-lived publisher, then this book was likely published around the same time. So, I give it an estimated printing of circa 1915, which also aligns with the design and look of the book. Also, in the early 20th century there were a great deal of publishers who would publish public domain books such as this, typically not including publication years so that they could publish it year after year without it looking dated.
James Fennimore Cooper (1789 – 1851) was a popular American writer during the first half of the 19th century. He spent most of his childhood in Cooperstown, NY, which was founded by his father. He joined the Navy, which gave him the experiences that led to him writing his first bestselling novel, The Spy, in 1821.After The Spy, he started writing The Pioneers, the first of his Leatherstocking books, which would collectively go on to to be his most popular books.
Historical context:
When this book was published in 1915, Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States. World War I had started in 1914, but the United States would not enter the war until 1917. The National Hockey League would form a few years later as well in 1917.