author
Robert Cooper
1819–1868
A fierce 19th-century freethinker, he wrote blunt, provocative books that challenged biblical authority and orthodox religion. His work also moved through Owenite social reform and later into spiritualism, making him an unusual and restless voice of his era.
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About the author
Born in 1819, Robert Cooper was identified in library and book records as a secularist and is closely associated with early Owenite and radical circles in Salford and Manchester. His earliest confirmed publication, A Contrast Between the New Moral World and the Old Immoral World (1838), places him among writers drawn to social reform, debate, and the challenge to established religion.
He is best known for outspoken freethought works such as The Infidel's Text-Book, a sustained attack on the Bible and organized Christianity. Records of his publications also show the range of his interests over time, from anti-clerical lectures and scriptural criticism to Spiritual Experiences: Including Seven Months with the Brothers Davenport (1867), which suggests a later engagement with spiritualism.
Cooper died in 1868. Although many details of his life are hard to pin down, the surviving record of his books presents him as a combative public writer who belonged to the lively world of 19th-century radical lecturing, secularism, and religious controversy.