''Jack Tier, or the Florida Reef'' is a novel by

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought ...

first published in 1848 by New York publisher Burgess, Stringer & Co. Set during the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...

, the novel relates a twenty-year homosocial relationship verging on the homoerotic between a sailor and the captain of the boat. But by the end of the novel the sailor is the captain's wife, transforming the story into one of heterosexual love and passion.McBride 85 Republished on the James Fenimore Cooper Society Website The novel was first published serially in a magazine under the title ''Rose Budd'' in 1846. When commenting on the novel in the context of other novels about the Mexican-American War, critic Jaime Javier Rodríguez describes the novel as "an obscure work not always found in library stacks hus itremains largely unread but it too deserves attention."Rodríguez 144-145.

Garden Key Light The Garden Key Light, also known as the Tortuga Harbor Light, is located at Fort Jefferson, on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, Florida. The first lighthouse, started in 1824 and first lit in 1826, was a brick conical tower. The lighthouse and its ...

on Garden Key in the

Dry Tortugas Dry Tortugas National Park is a national park located about west of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico. The park preserves Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands, the westernmost and most isolated of the Florida Keys. The archipelago's c ...

was used as the setting for the novel.

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Novels by James Fenimore Cooper 1848 American novels Novels set during the Mexican–American War Novels set in Florida Novels set on islands {{War-novel-stub