James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), the first major American novelist, was the son of a wealthy landowner who founded Cooperstown, New York. He attended Yale and served in the navy before turning to writing with Precaution (1820), but it was his second book, The Spy (1821), that brought him international fame. After he wrote The Pioneers (1823), public fascination with the character of Natty Bumppo and his use of the American landscape led him to write a series of sequels that gradually unfold the entire life of the frontier scout. The books' popularity reflected the growing interest in the clash between savagery and civilization on the frontier.