Introduction

Biography

Cooper was son of John and Hep­zi­bah Coop­er, and hus­band of Ma­ry E. Ty­son.

He stu­died law in the of­fice of fu­ture Am­er­ican pre­si­dent Ches­ter A. Ar­thur. Af­ter ad­mit­tance to the bar, though, he ne­ver prac­ticed law to any ex­tent.

Cooper con­trib­ut­ed po­ems to The Round Ta­ble, The Sa­tur­day Press, Put­nam’s Ma­ga­zine, The At­lan­tic Month­ly, Ap­ple­ton’s Jour­nal, The In­de­pen­dent, Harp­er’s Young Peo­ple, St. Ni­cho­las, and ma­ny oth­er pe­ri­od­ic­als.

Cooper wrote a num­ber of po­pu­lar ball­ads, ma­ny set to mu­sic by Ste­phen Foster. Some of his bet­ter known songs are Beau­ti­ful Isle of the Sea, Sweet Ge­ne­vieve (mu­sic by Hen­ry Tuck­er, sung by John Wayne in the 1948 film Fort Apa­che), Mo­ther Kissed Me in My Dream and Must We Then Meet as Stran­gers?

Cooper al­so trans­lat­ed the lyr­ics of Ger­man, Rus­sian, Ita­li­an, Spa­nish, and French mu­sic­al works in­to English.

Works

• The Chap­let of Or­ig­in­al Hymns and Songs, with Har­ris­on Mil­lard (Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts: G. D. Rus­sell, 1873)