Ned Myers, or A Life Before the Mast

In American literature, James Fenimore Cooper is a name that Americans have heard of but can't always place, when compared to the works of individuals like Edgar Allan Poe and Emerson and Thoreau. But every American comes across his work, and today he is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Perhaps his most famous work is The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece and well known as a movie title. Despite his relative lack of name recognition, he was well regarded in his day. Cooper was admired across the Atlantic by writers such as Honore de Balzac, and composer Franz Schubert, among others. Despite his relative lack of name recognition today, he was well regarded in his day not just for those stories, but also for his sea stories, like Afloat and Ashore and Jack Tier. Like those, Ned Myers tells the story of a man whose life is bound to the sea.