James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. Precaution is the first novel written by Cooper written in imitation of Jane Austen's novels of English gentry manners. It is mainly interesting today as a document in the history of American cultural colonialism and as an example of an attempt to imitate Jane Austen's investigation of the ironic discrepancy between illusion and reality.
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the first half of the 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. Precaution is the first novel written by Cooper written in imitation of Jane Austen's novels of English gentry manners. It is mainly interesting today as a document in the history of American cultural colonialism and as an example of an attempt to imitate Jane Austen's investigation of the ironic discrepancy between illusion and reality.