Howard W. (Howard Willard) Cook

Howard Willard Cook (1890–1959) was an American literary critic and author. Public-domain library records and reference pages connect him with works such as Our Poets of Today (1918), a survey of contemporary American poets, and The Mentor: Guynemer, The Wingèd Sword of France (1918), a biographical work on the French aviator Georges Guynemer.

Available reference entries identify him as born on December 12, 1890, in Syracuse, New York. Those same sources consistently describe him as a literary critic as well as an author, which fits the range of his published work.

Cook seems to have written for readers who wanted smart but approachable introductions to people and ideas of his time. While widely detailed biographical information is limited in the sources readily available online, his surviving books show an interest in both modern literature and the larger public history of the First World War era.