James Fenimore Cooper First American Novelist

Originally Aired: March 17, 1937 In Cavalcade of America #74, "James Fenimore Cooper First American Novelist," the dramatic story begins in 1820 when James Fenimore Cooper throws down a dull English novel in disgust, boasting to his wife Susan that he could write something better. Susan challenges her husband to prove it, leading the reluctant writer to pen his first novel, Precaution, in secret. When a guest at their friend Judge Jay's home declares it must be written by English novelist Mrs. Opie, Cooper feels humiliated by his failure to create anything original. Determined to redeem himself, Cooper resolves to write about what he truly knows: the American wilderness and frontier life. He completes The Spy and brings it to his publisher friend Charles Wiley, who bluntly rejects the manuscript as worthless, insisting Americans want to read about polished European society, not their own rough country. Undeterred and encouraged by Susan's faith in him, Cooper prints the book himself. The episode follows Cooper's struggle to prove that American stories deserve to be told, setting the stage for his eventual recognition as the nation's first great novelist.