The Ways of the Hour was James Fenimore Cooper’s last novel, published in 1850. Set in a rural New York county seat outside New York City, it is a courtroom drama of a woman accused of murder and theft, and of the men and women who defend her case. Cooper used the novel, among other things, to ex-press his discontent with changes in New York State’s judicial system during the 1840s, with the corruption of courts and juries, and with new ideas of women’s rights.