author
Conrad William Cooke
1843–1926
An engineer with a lively curiosity about invention, he is best remembered for a charming late-Victorian book on automata that explores the long history of self-moving machines. His writing brings together practical know-how, historical anecdote, and a real delight in mechanical ingenuity.
1 Audiobook
Automata Old and New
by Conrad William Cooke
About the author
Conrad William Cooke was an English engineer and writer best known for Automata Old and New, first published in the 1890s. The book grew out of a talk given to the Sette of Odd Volumes, where he was described as its “Mechanick,” and it helped preserve a wide-ranging history of mechanical figures, ingenious devices, and early attempts to imitate life through machinery.
Biographical references identify him as the son of the artist Edward William Cooke and place his life between 1843 and 1926. Engineering sources describe a career shaped by practical training and technical work, including an apprenticeship with John Penn and Sons and work connected with major Victorian engineering circles.
Today, Cooke is remembered less as a novelist than as a gifted explainer of mechanical culture. Automata Old and New remains appealing because it speaks to two kinds of readers at once: those who enjoy the history of invention, and those who simply like the strange, playful idea of machines made to move on their own.