"The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War (the Seven Years' War), when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. During this war, both the French and the British used Native American allies, but the French were particularly dependent, as they were outnumbered in the Northeast frontier areas by the more numerous British colonists. The novel is primarily set in the upper New York wilderness, detailing...

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, is one of America's best-known novels. In his Reader's Companion to this new edition, Daniel Dyer provides a wealth of annotations explaining the book's many "sourdough" expressions and geographical references in order to help the modern reader see what London saw. Dyer also identifies characters in the novel - human and canine alike - whom London had known, and he spices his annotations with Northern lore and...