Pioneer Life is a mostly autobiographical narrative of the life of Philip Tome, an early Pennsylvania pioneer, adventurer, and hunter who served as an interpreter for two of the Seneca Nation's most important chiefs, Cornplanter and Governor Blacksnake, for over a decade. Tome was born in 1782 near present-day Harrisburg and lived on the upper Susquehanna for much of his life. He tells colorful (and mostly true) tales about his hunting exploits in the Pennsylvania wilderness as he tracked elk, wolves, bears, panthers, and foxes through the state's north-central mountains, tackling large and difficult animals that earned him wide renown among his contemporaries. His tales contain suspenseful chase scenes, accidents, and hair's-breadth escapes, inviting the reader to see a Pennsylvania still wild through the eyes of "one who, in all the scenes of border life was never conquered by man or animal." The book, which was originally published in 1854, has since been reprinted several times, and includes a preface from folklorist Henry Shoemaker in this edition.