The last of the mohicans/ James Fenimore Cooper

"The whole band sprang upon their feet as one man, and giving utterance to their rage for a single instant in the most frantic cries, they rushed upon their prisoners in a body, with drawn knives and uplifted tomahawks..."

In 1757 Britain and France are vying for colonial supremacy on the shores of North America. The British stronghold of Fort William Henry is under attack from French forces and their Native American allies. Heedless of the danger, Alice and Cora Munro, daughters of the besieged fort's commander, set out to visit their father. They soon find an enemy within the camp in the shape of Magua, a duplicitous guide in league with the French. His nefarious plans are thwarted as scout Hawkeye rides to the rescue with his Mohican companions Chingachgook and Uncas. But Magua manages to escape and the women's perilious journey is only just beginning.

The Last Mohicans is the best known of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking novel's, featuring one of literature's great mythic heroes. A stirring adventure evoking the pionner spirit of frontier life, its vivid narrative "exhales the odors of the pine-woods and the freshness of the mountain wind", as 19th century historian Francis Parkman put it; its pages suffused with descriptions and events that "breathe the somber poetry of solitude and danger".