Page Cooper (1891-1958)

Aka Anice Page Cooper

Author, Editor, Poet, War Correspondent

Born January 7, 1891, Salem, West Virginia

Died January 5, 1958, Charleston, South Carolina

Anice Page Cooper was born on January 7, 1891, in Salem, West Virginia, and attended Ohio Wesleyen University in Delaware, Ohio. She seems to have begun her career as a writer and editor using her full name, but by the time she began contributing to Weird Tales magazine in the early 1940s, she had shortened it to Page Cooper. Page wrote and edited numerous books, many of which were horse stories, including Man o' War (1950) and Amigo: Circus Horse (1955), illustrated by Henry C. Pitz. She was a versatile writer, though, authoring journalistic, biographical, and poetical works as well. During World War II, Page served as a war correspondent in the Pacific Theater, reporting on the experiences of Navy nurses. She continued in her freelance career after the war, writing a number of books for young people. In all she contributed eight poems to Weird Tales between 1942 and 1951. Most have a single word for their titles. Taken together, those eight titles could almost tell a story in themselves. Anice Page Cooper died suddenly on January 5, 1958, in Charleston, South Carolina, two days short of her sixty-seventh birthday.

Page Cooper's Poems in Weird Tales

"The Curse" (Jan. 1942)

"Hunger" (Mar. 1942)

"A Charm" (July 1944)

"Quest Unhallowed" (Mar. 1945)

"Remorse" (Sept. 1945)

"A Curse" (Jan. 1949)

"Incantation" (Sept. 1950)

"My Timid Soul" (Jan. 1951)

Further Reading
Jane Badger Books, A Website on Pony Book Authors and Their Books

Another poem by Page Cooper, from The Bookman:

Wild Goats

by Page Cooper

The moon is full but it won't spill over

And it won't fall out when it hangs askew.

The bees suck honey from tall red clover,

But they won't get drunk of it.

Bees never do.

I gave my heart to a girl with amber

Eyes like the windows the saints shine through.

She dragged it through brambles where wild goats clamber.

But my heart won't break of it.

Hearts never do.

Page Cooper wrote and edited a number of books about horses during the 1940s and '50s. Henry C. Pitz, Wesley Dennis, and Herman D. Giesen were among the illustrators.

Author and poet Anice Page Cooper (1891-1958). Photo from the collection of Randal A. Everts.

Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley