Other Fiction Cooper, James Fenimore: Precaution. v1. 31 Aug 2013

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James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. He lived most of his life in Cooperstown, New York, established by his father William. Cooper was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church and in his later years contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years but was expelled for misbehavior. Before embarking on his career as a writer he served in the U.S. Navy as a Midshipman which greatly influenced many of his novels and other writings. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. Among naval historians his works on early U.S. naval history have been widely received but were sometimes criticized by Cooper's contemporaries. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.

Excerpt
This book originally owed its existence to an accident, and it was printed under circumstances that prevented the usual supervision of the press by the author. The consequences were many defects in plot, style, and arrangement, that were entirely owing to precipitation and inexperience; and quite as many faults, of another nature, that are to be traced solely to a bad manuscript and worse proof reading. Perhaps no novel of our times was worst printed than the first edition of this work. More than a hundred periods were placed in the middle of sentences, and perhaps five times that number were omitted in places where they ought to have been inserted. It is scarcely necessary to add, that passages were rendered obscure, and that entire paragraphs were unintelligible.

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