Howard W. (Howard Willard) Cook

Howard Willard Cook was an American literary critic and author, born on December 12, 1890, in Syracuse, New York. Reliable catalog and reference sources connect him most strongly with literary criticism, and especially with his book Our Poets of Today, a study of modern poetry and poets.

Cook appears in library and public-domain author records as a writer whose work has remained accessible long after its first publication. That continuing availability suggests the lasting value of his role as an interpreter of literature rather than simply a commentator on his own moment.

Some biographical details about his life are less consistently documented across easy-to-verify sources, so it is safest to focus on what is well supported: he was an American man of letters, active in literary criticism, and he died in 1959.