John Esten Cooke (November 3, 1830 – September 27, 1886) was an American novelist, writer and poet. He was the brother of poet Philip Pendleton Cooke. During the American Civil War, Cooke was a staff officer for Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart in the Confederate States Army cavalry and, after Stuart's death, for Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton. Stuart's wife, Flora, was a first cousin of Cooke.
Early life
Born in Winchester, Virginia, on November 3, 1830, Cooke was one of 13 children (five of whom survived childhood) of Bermuda-born planter and lawyer John R. Cooke and Maria Pendleton Cooke. He was born on the family's plantation, "Ambler's Hill," near Winchester, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1838, "Glengary", the family estate to which the Cookes had moved, burned down. The family moved to Charles Town, Virginia and in 1840 to Richmond, Virginia.
At his father's urging, Cooke studied and practiced law briefly in Richmond but abandoned that in 1849 when continuing financial problems prevented him from enrolling at the University of Virginia. He formed a law partnership with his father in 1851 but his writing often interfered with his work.
Cooke had several manuscripts published between 1848 and 1853. In 1854, he began to write and publish books. In 1858 after his father's death, he gave up the practice of law altogether. After he started writing, he almost immediately became a successful novelist and prolific short story writer, eventually authoring 31 books and almost 200 published articles and poems. He became noted for his writing about Virginia, much of it in historical novels.
