Mary Cooper (d. August 5, 1761[1]) was an English publisher and bookseller based in London who flourished between 1743 and 1761.[2] With Thomas Boreman, 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]