author
Courtney Ryley Cooper
1886–1940
A writer who really did run away with the circus, he turned a life of show business and reporting into vivid books about crime, performers, and American legends. His work carries the pace of journalism and the color of the big top.
5 Audiobooks
The White Desert
by Courtney Ryley Cooper
The Eagle's eye
by Courtney Ryley Cooper, William J. (William James) Flynn
The Cross-Cut
by Courtney Ryley Cooper
Lions 'n' tigers 'n' everything
by Courtney Ryley Cooper
Under the big top
by Courtney Ryley Cooper
About the author
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1886, Courtney Ryley Cooper left home as a teenager to join a traveling circus. That early experience stayed with him for life and shaped much of his writing, giving him a firsthand feel for performers, risk, and spectacle.
He later worked as a reporter and became a prolific American writer, publishing dozens of books as well as stories and articles. His subjects ranged widely, but he became especially known for writing about crime and the circus, and he also served as a publicist for Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.
That unusual mix of insider circus knowledge and fast-moving journalistic style made his nonfiction especially distinctive. Cooper died in New York City in 1940, but his books still offer a lively window into popular American life in the early twentieth century.