author
George Hooper
1824–1890
Known for vivid, accessible books on great European campaigns, this 19th-century British writer brought military history to a broad readership. His best-known works revisit Waterloo, Sedan, and the life of the Duke of Wellington with a journalist’s eye for clear narrative.
1 Audiobook
About the author
A British journalist and military historian, George Hooper wrote lively accounts of war and political upheaval for general readers. Public-domain editions of his books identify him as the author of Waterloo: The Downfall of the First Napoleon and The Campaign of Sedan: The Downfall of the Second Empire, August–September 1870, two works that helped define his reputation as a narrator of major European battles.
His writing aimed to be readable as well as informed. In the preface to The Campaign of Sedan, Hooper presents the book as a concise narrative built from official and contemporary sources, and later editions note that he had planned revisions himself before his death. He was also trusted by other editors working on Napoleonic subjects, including an edition of Waterloo Days, whose introduction thanks him for revising its notes.
Hooper died in 1890. Although many details of his personal life are not easy to confirm from widely available sources, his surviving books show a writer who cared about making complex campaigns understandable without losing their drama.