Precaution #375022

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.