She enjoyed listening to the radio, especially the BBC's "Children's Hour," which dramatized novels like John Masefield's
The Box of Delights (1935). She read a variety of poetry, as well as the works of Rudyard Kipling, John Masefield, E. Nesbit, Arthur Ransome, Jack London, and Charles Dickens. Like her grandfather she was entranced by the theater and remembers the awe she felt when she attended a Christmas pantomime for the first time at about the age of three.
Cooper attended Slough High School for girls and subsequently won a scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford, where she read English and eventually became the first woman editor of the newspaper, Cherwell. During her college years she attended lectures by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, themselves writers of fantasies. In 1956 Cooper graduated with a degree in language and literature and made her first professional sale as a writer, publishing an anonymous essay about leaving Oxford on 31 August 1956 in the London Times.
After college Cooper worked as a temporary reporter at the Sunday Express, then was hired by the Sunday Times, where she worked as a reporter and feature writer for seven years.
This is a free page. This page contains 184 words. This
biography contains 7,177 words (approx. 24 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Susan (Mary) Cooper Access Pass.
