James Fenimore Cooper has been credited with inventing genre fiction from the Western and the spy novel to the high seas adventure tale and the Revolutionary War romance. America’s first crusading novelist, Cooper reminds us that literature is not a cloistered art; rather, it ought to be intimately engaged with the world. Dr. Wayne Franklin offers readers the most comprehensive portrait to date of this underappreciated literary icon. This event is the first annual Henry S.F. Cooper Jr. Lecture on Early American History & Literature.