James Fenimore Cooper

Cooper is unlikely to appear on your test. You should be able, however, to associate the name Natty Bumppo with him.

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, each featuring the hero Natty Bumppo, known by European settlers as "Leatherstocking," and by the Native Americans as "Pathfinder," "Deerslayer," or "Hawkeye.".

In an attempt to regain his popularity, Cooper returned to Leatherstocking with The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841) where he portrayed, respectively, the hero's early maturity and youth. Praising the books, most contemporary reviewers expressed a sense of relief at finding Cooper back in what they believed to be his natural element. But there is more to the considerable charm of these works than the simple pleasure of recognition, the delight of encountering a rejuvenated Natty Bummpo once more moving nimbly and fearlessly through the wilderness. For the embattled and bitter author of these novels was able to imbue them with a powerful yearning for an idealized America of the spirit, an Eden-like landscape where his hero, after a couple of brief brushes with love, could retreat to become one with nature.

Excerpts from Cooper

“On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.”

“We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes.”

In this book the hero is just arriving at manhood with the freshness of feeling that belongs to that interesting period of life, and with the power to please that properly characterizes youth. As a consequence he is loved; and, what denotes the real waywardness of humanity, more than it corresponds with theories and moral propositions, he is loved by one full of art, vanity and weakness, and loved principally for his sincerity, his modesty, and his unerring truth and probity.

--the preface which details the attraction between Judith and Natty.