Leatherstocking Tales
The predecessor of the western in American literature emerged early with tales of the frontier. The most famous of the early 19th-century frontier novels were James Fenimore Cooper's five novels comprising the "Leatherstocking Tales". Cooper's novels were largely set in what was at the time the American frontier: the Appalachian Mountains and areas west of there. As did his novel "The Prairie" (1824), most later westerns would typically take place west of the Mississippi River.