James Fenimore Cooper

                                  The Prairie

                                     A Tale

                                    Preface

The manner in which the writer of this book, came into possession of most of its
materials is mentioned in the work itself. Any well bred reader will readily
conceive that there may exist a thousand reasons, why he should not reveal any
more of his private sources of information. He will only say, on his own
responsibility, that the portions of the tale for which no authorities are given
are quite as true as those which are not destitute of this peculiar advantage,
and that all may be believed alike.
    There is however to be found in the following pages an occasional departure
from strict historical veracity which it may be well to mention. In the endless
confusion of names, customs, opinions and languages which exists among the
tribes of the West, the author, has paid much more attention to sound and
convenience than to literal truth. He has uniformly called the Great Spirit, for
instance, the Wahcondah, though he is not ignorant that there are different
names for that being in the two nations he has introduced. So in other matters
he has rather adhered to simplicity than sought to make his narrative strictly
correct at the expense of all order and clearness. It was enough for his purpose
that the picture should possess the general features of the original. In the
shading, attitude, and disposition of the figure a little liberty has been
taken. Even this brief explanation would have been spared, did not the author
know that there was a certain class of learned Thebans, who are just as fit to
read any thing which depends for its success on the imagination, as they are to
write it.
    It may be necessary to meet much graver and less easily explained objections
in the minds of a far higher class of readers. The introduction of one and the
same character, as a principal actor, in no less than three books, and the
selection of a comparative desert, which is aided by no historical recollections
and embellished by so few or no poetical associations for the scene of a legend,
in these times of perilous adventure in works of this description, may need more
vindication. If the first objection can be removed, the latter must fall of
course, as it clearly became the duty of a faithful chronicler, to follow his
hero wherever he might choose to go.
    It is quite probable that the narrator of these simple events has deceived
himself as to the importance they may have in the eyes of other people. But he
has seen or thought he has seen, something sufficiently instructive and touching
in the life of a veteran of the forest,