The Cask of Amontillado Poe may have borrowed Montresor's family motto "Nemo me impune lacessit" from James Fenimore Cooper, who used the line in "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826). Poe wrote his tale, however, as a response to his personal rival Thomas Dunn English. Poe and English had several confrontations, usually revolving around literary caricatures of one another. Poe thought that one of English's writings went a bit too far, and successfully sued the other man's editors at "The New York Mirror" for libel in 1846. That year English published a revenge-based novel called "1844, or, The Power of the S.F." Its plot
The Last of the Mohicans and the Mahican of upstate New York. The popularity of Cooper's book helped spread the confusion. In the period when Cooper was writing, deputations from the Western tribes frequently traveled through the region along the Mohawk River, on their way to New York or Washington, D.C. He made a point of visiting these parties as they passed through Albany and New York. On several occasions, he followed them all the way to Washington to observe them for longer. He also talked to the military officers and interpreters who accompanied them. The novel was first published in 1826 by Carey &