James Fenimore Cooper was a 19th century writer known for his historical romances and stories of the sea. His Leatherstocking tales including the novel The Last of the Mohicans are his best-known works. He also wrote Precaution (1820), The Spy (1821), The Pioneers (1823), The Red Rover (1828), The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (1829), The Notions of a Traveling Bachelor (1828), The Waterwitch (1830), The Bravo (1831), The Monikins (1835), The American Democrat (1835), Homeward Bound (1839), Home as Found (1838), and A History of the Navy of the United States (1839). In Precaution three British families the Moseleys, the Jarvises, and the Chattertons are trying to arrange marriages for their children. The "Precaution" displayed by Mrs. Wilson who is trying to help her niece find a good Christian marriage gives Cooper this novel's title.