Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief
Cooper was born in New Jersey, but the family moved soon after to the family estate in Cooperstown, New York. Cooper began studying at Yale, but was expelled at 17 and went to sea, eventually serving as a midshipman in the Navy from 1808 to 1811. He left the Navy at 22, married, and settled in Scarsdale, New York, in 1817, where he became a gentleman farmer. On a bet with his wife, he wrote a novel when he was 30, a novel of manners that was not a great success. He was, however, hooked, and his second...
