(b. September 15, 1789; d. September 14, 1851) American writer known for early U.S. war novels.

James Fenimore Cooper was part of the generation of writers who created the first distinctively American literature following the Revolutionary War. Critics debate whether or not he was a great writer, but it does seem safe to say that Cooper was the father of the American novel, and more specifically of the American war novel. This is probably all that can be said about him without argument. Mark Twain famously and wittily despised him, more for his squirishness, perhaps, than for his writing. He was often criticized in his own century for too greatly admiring (and imitating) British writers, and more recently he has been criticized for his patronizing attitude toward Native Americans, as well as for his turgid and overwritten prose.

Early Works

The scion of a landed upstate New...