Catherine Cooper Hopley

Catherine Cooper Hopley (5 October 1817 – 1911), also known by the pen-name Sarah L. Jones, was a British author, governess, artist, and naturalist known for her books on the American Civil War and her nature books for general audiences, including the first popular book on snakes in the English language.

Early life and family Hopley was born in Whitstable, Kent, the only daughter among four children to parents Edward Hopley (1780–1841), a surgeon, and Catherine Cooper Prat (1792–1878). Her oldest brother Edward Hopley (1816–1869) became a noted painter and entomologist, while her second brother, John Hopley (1821–1904) emigrated to America and became a noted publisher and political figure in Ohio. Her youngest brother Thomas Hopley (1819–1876) was a schoolteacher convicted in the beating death of a student in the Eastbourne manslaughter trial. Little of Hopley's early family life is known. In 1860 she traveled to Virginia, where she was present at the outbreak of the American Civil War. During her travels, she met several Confederate leaders, including President Jefferson Davis, Stephen Mallory, Robert E. Lee

In England, she began publishing works on her travels in the US. In her two volume Life in the South (1863), she describes her observations of the social culture in Virginia between 1860 and 1862 writing anonymously as "A Blockaded British Subject", "Miss Jones, and under the initials "S.L.J.". It was generally not well received. Snakes includes detailed observation of feeding behaviour in snakes, including the mechanism by which Xenodon snakes erect their teeth in a viper-like fashion, an observation that predates those by E. G. Boulenger (generally credited with the description) by over 30 years. in 1911, aged 93. The date of her death has been stated as 9 April,

Books Life in the South: From the Commencement of the War (1863) "Stonewall" Jackson, Late General of the Confederate States Army (1863) Rambles and Adventures in the Wilds of the West (1872) Aunt Jenny's American Pets (1872) Stories of Red Men from Early American History (1880) Snakes: Curiosities and Wonders of Serpent Life (1882) British Reptiles and Batrachians (1888)