James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) was a prolific and popular nineteenth-century American writer who is best remembered for his stirring frontier adventure The Last of the Mohicans. Enrolled at Yale University at age 13 and expelled three years later, he eventually joined the US Navy before launching a successful literary career. His writing consisted primarily of historical fiction about frontier and Native American life, as reflected in his well-known Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy.
Steven Frye is a Ph.D. graduate of Purdue University and Professor of English at California State University, Bakersfield. He the author of Understanding Cormac McCarthy and editor of the 2011 Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy.