Raised in a prosperous family in his father’s frontier settlement of Cooperstown, New York, Cooper was the first important American writer to create a vivid myth of frontier life by drawing on the subjects and landscape of his native land. His best-known novels, the Leatherstocking Tales books, feature the frontier adventures of Natty Bumppo and skillfully portray the clash between the frontier wilderness and the encroaching civilization. A bet with whom led Cooper to pen his first novel? Discuss