Susan Cooper Books

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Susan Cooper is a renowned British author who wrote ‘The Dark is Rising’. Born in 1935 in Buckinghamshire at a time when it was mostly a green countryside, her father, John Richard Cooper worked at the Natural History Museum before he was drawn into the Second World War. He came back home with a wounded leg, eventually finding a place at the Great Western Railway Office.

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Order of The Boggart Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Boggart 1993 Description / Buy
2 The Boggart and the Monster 1997 Description / Buy
3 The Boggart Fights Back 2018 Description / Buy

Order of The Dark Is Rising Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Over Sea, Under Stone 1965 Description / Buy
2 The Dark is Rising 1973 Description / Buy
3 Greenwitch 1974 Description / Buy
4 The Grey King 1975 Description / Buy
5 Silver On The Tree 1977 Description / Buy

Order of Susan Cooper Standalone Novels

# Read Title Published Details
1 Dawn of Fear 1970 Description / Buy
2 Seaward 1983 Description / Buy
3 King of Shadows 1999 Description / Buy
4 Green Boy 2002 Description / Buy
5 The Magician's Boy (Short Story) 2005 Description / Buy
6 Victory 2006 Description / Buy
7 Ghost Hawk 2013 Description / Buy

Order of Susan Cooper Picture Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 Jethro and the Jumbie (Short Story) 1979 Description / Buy
2 The Silver Cow (Short Story) 1983 Description / Buy
3 The Selkie Girl (Short Story) 1986 Description / Buy
4 Matthew's Dragon (Short Story) 1991 Description / Buy
5 Tam Lin (Short Story) 1991 Description / Buy
6 Danny and the Kings (Short Story) 1993 Description / Buy
7 Frog (Short Story) 2002 Description / Buy
8 The Word Pirates (Short Story) 2019 Description / Buy
9 The Shortest Day (Short Story) 2019 Description / Buy

Order of Susan Cooper Non-Fiction Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 Dreams and Wishes 1996 Description / Buy
2 The Magic Maker 2011 Description / Buy

Order of Dramascripts Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Werewolf ( By: Adrian Flynn) 1642 Description / Buy
2 The Valley of Fear ( By: Adrian Flynn) 1915 Description / Buy
3 All My Sons (Short Story) ( By: Arthur Miller) 1947 Description / Buy
4 Death of a Salesman (Short Story) ( By: Arthur Miller) 1949 Description / Buy
5 The Crucible (Short Story) ( By: Arthur Miller) 1953 Description / Buy
6 A View from the Bridge (Short Story) ( By: Arthur Miller) 1955 Description / Buy
7 Brother in the Land ( By: Robert Swindells) 1984 Description / Buy
8 Across the Barricades ( By: Joan Lingard) 1990 Description / Buy
9 A Question of Courage ( By: Marjorie Darke) 1990 Description / Buy
10 Paper Tigers ( By: Steve Skidmore, Steve Barlow) 1991 Description / Buy
11 The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler ( By: Gene Kemp) 1991 Description / Buy
12 Hot Cakes ( By: Adrian Flynn) 1992 Description / Buy
13 Burston School Strike ( By: Roy Nevitt) 1992 Description / Buy
14 A Tale of Two Cities ( By: Steve Skidmore) 1996 Description / Buy
15 Jane Eyre ( By: Steve Skidmore, Steve Barlow) 1998 Description / Buy
16 The Labyrinth: Play ( By: David Calcutt) 2000 Description / Buy
17 Working Parts ( By: Nick Jones) 2000 Description / Buy
18 Dracula ( By: David Calcutt) 2003 Description / Buy
19 The Canterbury Tales ( By: Martin Riley) 2003 Description / Buy
20 The Deamon Headmaster ( By: Nick Stafford) 2003 Description / Buy
21 The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents ( By: Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs) 2003 Description / Buy
22 Johnny and the Dead ( By: Terry Pratchett) 2003 Description / Buy
23 Frankenstein ( By: Philip Pullman) 2003 Description / Buy
24 Lady Macbeth ( By: David Calcutt) 2005 Description / Buy
25 The Snake-Stone ( By: Berlie Doherty) 2005 Description / Buy
26 Doctor Faustus (Short Story) ( By: Geraldine McCaughrean) 2006 Description / Buy
27 Troy 24 ( By: David Calcutt) 2007 Description / Buy
28 The White Rose and the Swatiska ( By: Adrian Flynn) 2007 Description / Buy
29 Salem ( By: David Calcutt) 2007 Description / Buy
30 The Three Musketeers (Short Story) ( By: Ken Ludwig) 2008 Description / Buy
31 Cry, the Beloved Country ( By: Roy Sargeant) 2008 Description / Buy
32 Bog Child ( By: Siobhan Dowd) 2008 Description / Buy
33 Solace of the Road ( By: Siobhan Dowd) 2009 Description / Buy
34 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( By: Adrian Flynn) 2011 Description / Buy
35 King of Shadows 2011 Description / Buy
36 The Invisible Man ( By: Adrian Flynn) 2012 Description / Buy
37 The Garbage King ( By: Oladipo Agboluaje) 2013 Description / Buy
38 The Devil Walks ( By: Anne Fine) 2013 Description / Buy
39 A Christmas Carol ( By: Conor McReynolds, Richard Kidd) 2013 Description / Buy
40 Our Day Out ( By: Willy Russell) 2014 Description / Buy
41 Blood Brothers ( By: Willy Russell) 2014 Description / Buy
42 Flesh and Blood ( By: Benjamin Hulme-Cross) 2014 Description / Buy
43 Dodger ( By: Stephen Briggs) 2014 Description / Buy
44 The Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty ( By: David Calcutt) 2014 Description / Buy
45 Stone Cold ( By: Robert Swindells) 2014 Description / Buy
46 Beowulf ( By: David Calcutt) 2014 Description / Buy
47 Homer's Odyssey ( By: David Calcutt) 2014 Description / Buy
48 Arson About ( By: Mark Wheeller) 2014 Description / Buy
49 Treasure Island ( By: David Calcutt) 2014 Description / Buy
50 Unman Wittering and Zigo ( By: Giles Cooper) 2014 Description / Buy
51 The Diary of Anne Frank ( By: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett) 2014 Description / Buy
52 The Hound of the Baskervill ( By: John O'Connor) 2014 Description / Buy
53 Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror ( By: Philip Pullman) 2014 Description / Buy
54 Tess of the D'Urbervilles ( By: David Calcutt) 2016 Description / Buy
55 Cowgirl ( By: G.R. Gemin) 2016 Description / Buy
56 The Brotherhood of Smoke ( By: Adrian Flynn) 2017 Description / Buy
+ Show All Books in this Series

Susan Cooper Anthologies

# Read Title Published Details
1 Travellers in Time: Past, Present, and to Come 1980 Description / Buy
2 The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Fourth Annual Collection 1991 Description / Buy
3 Fourth Annual Collection 1991 Description / Buy
4 When I Was Your Age: Original Stories about Growing Up 1996 Description / Buy
5 The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature 2002 Description / Buy
6 The Wand in the Word 2006 Description / Buy
7 Acting Out 2008 Description / Buy
8 Haunted 2011 Description / Buy
9 The Exquisite Corpse Adventure 2011 Description / Buy
+ Click to View all Anthologies
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Ethel, Cooper’s mother, taught ten-year-olds. A former student of Slough High School and Sommerville College (University of Oxford) from where she got her English Degree, Cooper stayed in Buckinghamshire until the age of 21. Then she went to Aberdyfi, her grandmother’s village in Wales.

Cooper was an avid reader. Her passion for the written word was ignited when she was young. Her brother was the same and he eventually took up writing just like his big sister. Everyone that knew Susan Cooper expected her to take the publishing route.

At Oxford, while she was lauded for it, no one was surprised when she became the university newspaper’s editor, the first woman to hold that position. After college, she went into journalism. While she cherished her positioned at the Sunday Times in London, she was even more enthused by the idea of working under Ian Flemming.

The James Bond creator was her first boss. As far as her personal works are concerned, Cooper tried to write in her spare time. ‘The Dark is Rising’ started taking shape during her stint at the Sunday Times. It was also during this period that ‘Mandrake’, her debut novel, was written and published (1964).

Many of her fans have no idea that ‘Mandrake’ was her first novel. They think that her career started with ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’. This is probably because ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’ is the first book in the ‘Dark is Rising’ series. It is worth noting that ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’ was initially meant to stand on its own.

The author wrote it for a publishing house competition. The manuscript was rejected by 20 publishers before Jonathan Cape entered the picture and decided to give it a fair shake. It was because of ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’ that Susan Cooper and Margaret McElderry met.

The Sunday Times had sent Cooper to the United States. Several things happened in the country that changed her life. She met a professor by the names of Nicholas Grant, eventually marrying him. The widower had three children at the time. So Cooper became their stepmother. She also bore two more children.

She had already settled down in the US in 1963 when McElderry bought the rights to ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’. She went on to become Cooper’s best American friend. She was responsible for getting ‘Dawn of Fear’, an autobiographical novel published. This was after Cooper’s agent tried and failed to find a publisher to buy it.

In the years that followed, the author conceived the concept behind the Dark is Rising. She found a way to connect the story back to ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’, paving the way for her most popular series of novels.

Cooper’s marriage to Nicholas ended in divorce. She went on to marry Hume Cronyn, an actor, and author.

Susan Cooper Awards

Cooper won the Newbery Medal, Tir na n-Og Award, and the B’nai B’rith Janusz Korczak Prize, not to mention a Hans Christian Andersen Award nomination.

Susan Cooper Books into Movies

The second novel in the ‘Dark is Rising’ series became a Live-Action Fantasy film called ‘The Seeker’ in 2007.

Best Susan Cooper Books

Cooper has been praised for writing fantastical stories that are rooted in the real world, with some of the best books in her bibliography including:

Dark is Rising: The powers of evil are rising. The six great signs of light can stop them but only if they are joined. Will thought he was a simple boy. But then he turned 11 and realized that he was destined to find and guard the great signs.

Over Sea, Under Stone: The Drew children did not expect much from their holiday in Cornwall. But then they discovered an ancient map and realized that they held within their hands the key to finding a power that could vanquish the forces of evil.

When Does The Next Susan Cooper book come out?

Susan Cooper doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is The Shortest Day and was released on October, 22nd 2019. It is the newest book in the Susan Cooper Picture Books.

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