Edmund Cooper

Born in Marple, near Stockport, Cheshire, Cooper left school at the age of 15. He became engaged at 16 to a teacher four years older than he was, and married her three years later. He worked as a labourer, then a civil servant, and in 1944 he joined the Merchant Navy. After the war he trained as a teacher, and began to publish verse, then short stories, then novels. Deadly Image, the first novel to appear under his own name, …