author

William Cooper

A sharp, observant British novelist, he is best remembered for the much-loved "Scenes from Provincial Life" sequence, which follows ordinary lives with wit and unusual honesty. Writing under a pen name, he brought together the worlds of literature, public service, and postwar Britain in a way that still feels fresh.

1 Audiobook

A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper

A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper

by William Cooper

About the author

Born Harry Summerfield Hoff in Crewe, England, on August 4, 1910, he later wrote as William Cooper. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, taught in Leicester, and then served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

After the war, he worked in several civil service and public-sector roles, including positions connected with the Civil Service Commission, the Atomic Energy Authority, and the Central Electricity Generating Board. Alongside that career, he built a substantial body of writing that included novels, plays, and nonfiction.

His best-known books are the four novels in the "Scenes from Life" sequence: Scenes from Provincial Life, Scenes from Married Life, Scenes from Metropolitan Life, and Scenes from Later Life. Archival and library records identify him as a British novelist who lived from 1910 to 2002, and they show a long writing life that continued into the early 1990s.