James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper was an American fiction author known for being one of the most prolific authors of his time and foremost exponents of Romanticism. Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey in 1789 to Elizabeth and William Cooper. In 1802 Cooper got into Yale University though he did not finish his degree after he was expelled for a prank that went wrong and caused a lot of damage to his hostel. His expulsion was one of the lowest moments in his life and he decided to go become a sailor in a merchant vessel. By the time he was twenty-one he had risen to the rank of midshipman in the fledgling US Navy. In 1811 he met and married Susan Augusta de Lancey with whom he had seven children. Susan Fenimore Cooper his daughter also made a name for herself as a writer.