(1789-1851), novelist and social critic. Cooper is best known for The Leatherstocking Tales, a set of five novels about American frontiersman Natty Bumppo that includes The Deerslayer (1841) and The Last of the Mohicans (1826). Cooper was the first author to seriously portray American scenes and characters. After serving in the U.S. Navy he wrote The Pilot (1823), the first American novel about the sea.
