Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cooper, Edward (d.1725?)
COOPER, or COWPER, EDWARD (d. 1725?), printseller, carried on the leading business in London from the time of James II to nearly the close of the reign of George I. His name as vendor is to be found on a great number of mezzotints, and this may have led to the belief that he was an actual engraver. He issued many important prints by Faithorne, Lens, Pelham, Simon (later period), Smith (earlier period), Williams, and others. He lived at the Three Pigeons in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and probably died about the beginning of 1725, as an advertisement in the ‘Daily Post’ of April in that year announced the sale of his household goods and stock-in-trade. Bowles and other publishers purchased some of his plates, and issued inferior impressions from them. There are mezzotint portraits of Cooper by P. Pelham, after J. Vander Vaart, dated 1724, of his son John (a child), of Priscilla (wife or daughter), and of Elizabeth (a young daughter).
[J. C. Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits, pp. 144, 463, 969, 1078, 1683; Granger's Biogr. Hist. 1824, v. 346, 399; Noble's Biogr. Hist. iii. 428, 451; Strutt's Biogr. Dict. i. 215; Bromley's Catalogue; Walpole's Cat. of Engravers (Dallaway), v. 207.]