Mary Cooper (publisher)

Mary Cooper (died 5 August 1761)^[1] was an English publisher and bookseller based in London who flourished between 1743 and 1761.^[2] With Thomas Boreman (fl. 1730–1743), she is the earliest publisher of children's books in English, predating John Newbery.^[3]

Cooper's business was on Paternoster Row.^[1] She was the widow of printer and publisher Thomas Cooper,^[2] whose business she continued. Thomas Cooper had published a reading guide in 1742, The Child's New Play-thing, and his wife published an edition of it after his death.^[4] Active from 1743 to 1761,^[2] she is notable especially for publishing Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book (1744), "the first known collection of English nursery rhymes in print".^[4] Cooper collected the rhymes, each of which had a companion woodcut, and later critics have remarked that "Cooper's ear for a good jingle was unerring".^[5]

With her husband, she was a trade publisher, meaning she did not own the copyright to works they published, meaning also that the actual copyright owner could remain anonymous, a benefit when the book was controversial—one of the Coopers' books was the (anonymously printed) erotic novel A Secret History of Pandora's Box (1742).^[6] As such, Cooper had business arrangements with Andrew Millar, Henry Fielding's publisher, and printed a number of Fielding's pamphlets.^[7] She was an exception to the perception that 18th-century women in the publishing business were of only minor importance; besides functioning as a trade publisher she owned the copyright to "at least 18"^[8] titles.^[9] She is also credited with publishing a newspaper, the Manchester Vindicated, remarked on in 1749.^[1]