The Pathfinder

by James Fenimore Cooper Book 3 in the Leatherstocking Tales series.

First published 1840

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3.9(5,171)

During the French and Indian War, Mabel Dunham travels through the forests and waterways of northern New York toward her father’s post at Oswego. Natty Bumppo, now known as Pathfinder, helps guide the party with Chingachgook and the young sailor Jasper Western, while enemy scouts and uncertainty about a traitor inside the British position make the journey increasingly dangerous.

The novel combines frontier warfare with Natty’s rare attempt at romantic attachment, as both he and Jasper are drawn to Mabel. Lake Ontario becomes an inland counterpart to Cooper’s sea novels, demanding navigation, discipline and courage, while Natty’s inability to exchange the woods for settled domestic life reinforces the solitude that defines him across the Leatherstocking Tales.