James Fenimore Cooper is considered by many to be America's first great novelist born in New Jersey. His most popular work, The Last of the Mohicans, has remained one of the most widely read novels throughout the world, Greatly influencing the way many cultures have viewed both the American Indians and the frontier period of U.S. history. In 1820, when reading a contemporary novel to his wife Susan, he decided to try his hand at fiction, resulting in a neophyte novel set in England he called Precaution. Its focus on morals and manners was influenced by Jane Austen's approach to fiction.