ians of that region. From them he learned the "wood-lore" he
later used to write the Leatherstocking Series (Haney 66). It was during these early years of
Cooper's life that he developed his "lifelong love of the forest" (Charles 392). The early part of
Cooper's life was largely marked by the influence of his father. At age thirteen he was sent to
Yale, but was expelled during his second year after allegedly blowing up another student's door
with gunpowder. His father then enlisted him in the navy. After his father's death, Cooper
resigned from the navy and got married (Stanley and Milne 132). Cooper married Susan De
Lancey, the member of a wealthy and well known family in Westchester County. Cooper's
literary career had a very interesting beginning. One night, while reading a popular English novel
of the day, Cooper remarked to his wife that he could do better. His wife asked him to prove it,
so he did. Cooper wrote Precaution and published it anonymously in 1820. This book didn't do
too well, but he wasn't discouraged. He went on to write many more novels, both fiction and
nonfiction, most of which did very well. Cooper died on September 14, 1851 in Cooperstown,
New York. He is known by most critics as "the father of the American novel" (Stanley and Milne
In American History, the 1820's were a time of westward expansion. As more and more
people moved west, Americans started to realize the future of America lies in the frontier. The
mystical frontier intrigued the authors of the time and inspired many of them to write fictional
stories with this new frontier as the setting. This widespread fascination lead to the beginning of a
literary movement called Romanticism. Cooper's Romantic influence can be seen in many of the
elements in The Last of the Mohicans. The splendor and the horror of war, the bold sol...