James Fenimore Cooper

Precaution James Fenimore Cooper

Though he would later rise to prominence as one of the most important American writers of his generation, James Fenimore Cooper's first literary effort was inspired by a wager with his wife, to whom he had offhandedly remarked that he could probably write a more exciting book than the English domestic novels that were the bestsellers of the day. Strongly influenced by Jane Austen, Precaution was initially published under a female pseudonym.