Satanstoe

by James Fenimore Cooper

First published 1845

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3.6(55)

Cornelius “Corny” Littlepage grows up on the family estate of Satanstoe in colonial New York and enters a world shaped by Dutch traditions, British government and the expansion of landed estates. His courtship of Anneke Mordaunt accompanies journeys through Westchester, Albany and the northern country, where land claims and frontier insecurity connect genteel family life to the political economy of the colony.

The story moves into the French and Indian War and the failed British assault on Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, placing Corny and his companions inside a conflict that reaches far beyond the family estate. As the first Littlepage Manuscript, the novel also establishes the inherited land and social obligations that later generations will struggle to defend.