author

Sir John Henry Cooke

1791–1870

A British army officer turned memoirist, he wrote vivid first-hand accounts of the Napoleonic Wars and the 1814–1815 New Orleans campaign. His books stand out for their sharp eye for military life and for the people and places caught up in war.

2 Audiobooks

Memoirs of the Late War, Vol 2 (of 2) Comprising the Personal Narrative of Captain Cooke, of the 43rd Regiment Light Infantry; the History of the Campaign of 1809 in Portugal, by the Earl of Munster; and a Narrative of the Campaign of 1814 in Holland, by Lieut. T. W. D. Moodie, H. P. 21st Fusileers

Memoirs of the Late War, Vol 2 (of 2) Comprising the Personal Narrative of Captain Cooke, of the 43rd Regiment Light Infantry; the History of the Campaign of 1809 in Portugal, by the Earl of Munster; and a Narrative of the Campaign of 1814 in Holland, by Lieut. T. W. D. Moodie, H. P. 21st Fusileers

by Sir John Henry Cooke, J. W. Dunbar (John Wedderburn Dunbar) Moodie, Earl of George Augustus Frederick FitzClarence Munster

Memoirs of the Late War, Vol 1 (of 2) Comprising the Personal Narrative of Captain Cooke, of the 43rd Regiment Light Infantry; the History of the Campaign of 1809 in Portugal, by the Earl of Munster; and a Narrative of the Campaign of 1814 in Holland, by Lieut. T. W. D. Moodie, H. P. 21st Fusileers

Memoirs of the Late War, Vol 1 (of 2) Comprising the Personal Narrative of Captain Cooke, of the 43rd Regiment Light Infantry; the History of the Campaign of 1809 in Portugal, by the Earl of Munster; and a Narrative of the Campaign of 1814 in Holland, by Lieut. T. W. D. Moodie, H. P. 21st Fusileers

by Sir John Henry Cooke, J. W. Dunbar (John Wedderburn Dunbar) Moodie, Earl of George Augustus Frederick FitzClarence Munster

About the author

Born in 1791 and later knighted, Sir John Henry Cooke is remembered as a soldier-writer whose surviving works draw directly on his military experience. His best-known books include A Narrative of Events in the South of France, and of the Attack on New Orleans, in 1814 and 1815 and his contribution to Memoirs of the Late War.

What makes his writing appealing now is its mix of battlefield detail and personal observation. Rather than sounding distant or formal, his accounts often feel immediate, giving readers a ground-level view of campaigning, travel, and combat in the closing years of the Napoleonic Wars.

Reliable biographical detail appears to be limited in the sources found here, so it is safest to present him chiefly as a British military officer and author active in the first half of the nineteenth century, with works that remain of interest to readers of military history and firsthand war memoir.