Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo.

Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking Tales.

They are all saved at last when March returns with British troops, who ambush the Hurons and kill most of them; Hetty is mortally wounded in the confusion.

Twain wrote at the beginning of the essay: "In one place in Deerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115.

"[1] He then lists 18 out of 19 rules "governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction" that Cooper violates in The Deerslayer.

"[3] Similarly, John McWilliams comments: Hilarious though Twain's essay is, it is valid only within its own narrow and sometimes misapplied criteria.

The reality of the piece comes chiefly from the reasoned presentation of the central issue: the conflict in Leather-Stocking between the forces which draw him to the woods and those which seek to attach him to his human kind.

1967: Chingachgook, die große Schlange, an East German Red Western from DEFA studios, starring Gojko Mitić.

1994: Hawkeye (1994 TV series), starring Lee Horsley and Lynda Carter, the 8th episode Out Of The Past tells how Henry March came to kill Natty Bumppo after Judith's death, fifteen years of the events of The Deerslayer.