Susan Cooper

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Susan Mary Cooper (born May 23, 1935) in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England is a British author. Cooper is most notably the author of The Dark is Rising, an award-winning five-volume fantasy saga set in and around England and Wales. The books incorporate traditional British mythology (Arthurian and folkloric elements) with original material (e.g. the Old Ones). She has written works for children, adolescents and adults.

1 Biography
2 Bibliography
3 Awards
4 External links

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Biography

Born in 1935, Cooper lived in Buckinghamshire until she was 21, when her parents moved to her grandmother's village of Aberdovey, Wales. She attended Slough High School and then earned a degree in English from Oxford University.

After graduation, she worked as a reporter for The Sunday Times of London under Ian Fleming, and wrote books in her spare time. During this period, she began work on the Dark is Rising sequence and finished her first book, the science fiction novel Mandrake.

In 1963 she left England "rather nervously" for the United States to marry a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She then began writing full-time, focusing on the Dark is Rising series and her 1970 autobiography, Dawn of Fear. Her output would eventually encompass works of fiction for both children and adults, a series of picture books, television and film screenplays, and works for the stage.

In July 1996, Cooper married Canadian-American actor and her sometime co-author Hume Cronyn, the widower of the late Jessica Tandy. They remained married until Cronyn's death in June 2003. Cooper currently resides in Fairfield, Connecticut.

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