James Fenimore Cooper wrote many novels of sea adventure, and during his lifetime they were at least as famous as his stories of the frontier. The Sea Lions, originally published in 1849, tells of two ships seeking seals among the icebergs of Antarctica, and caught there during the long winter night. The first few chapters of The Sea Lions are set in Orient Point (at Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York), where Cooper also spent time, and bought shares in a whaling vessel which sailed from Sag Harbor.