Born in London, the younghest of eleven children, who then grew up in Horsham, Sussex.

Largely self-educated, her first volume, Lays of a Wild harp (1835), appeared when she was 17.

Her most popular poem The Old Armchair first appeared in the Weekly Dispatch in 1837.

Her poems were characterized by an unaffected domestic sentiment which appealed strictly to popular uncultered tastes.

She conducted Eliza Cook's Journal from 1849 until 1854. Her complete poetical works were published in 1870.

Cook never married but was passionately attracted to the actress Charlotte Cushman.