William Brian Hooker (November 2, 1880 – December 28, 1946) was an American poet, educator, lyricist, and librettist. He was born in New York City, the son of Elizabeth Work and William Augustus Hooker, who was a mining engineer for the New York firm of Hooker and Lawrence. His family was well known in Hartford, Connecticut having descended from Thomas Hooker, a prominent Puritan religious and colonial leader who founded the Colony of Connecticut.
Hooker attended Yale College in the class of 1902, where he was a writer,Bronson, Francis W., Thomas Caldecott Chubb, and Cyril Hume, eds. (1922) The Yale Record Book of Verse: 1872–1922. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 13–14, 54–57. editor and business manager for campus humor magazine The Yale Record."William Brian Hooker". Obituary Record of Graduates Of Yale University: Deceased During the Year 1946–1947. New Haven: Yale University. January 1, 1948. p. 63. He was an editor of The Yale Record collection Yale Fun (1901).Hastings, Wells, Brian Hooker, and Henry Ely, eds. (1901) Yale Fun. New Haven: The Yale Record. p. 1. He died in New London, Connecticut, aged 66.
Works
Hooker published the novel The Right Man, illustrated by Alonzo Myron Kimball, in 1908."The Right Man" by Brian Hooker; illustrations by Alonzo Kimball, catalogue record at HathiTrust; His poetry was published in The Century Magazine, The Forum, Hampton's Magazine, Harper's Magazine, McClure's Magazine, Scribner's Magazine, The Smart Set, and The Yale Review.Poems, Yale University Press 1915, p. iv.
Hooker wrote the librettos for two operas by Horatio Parker, Mona (opera) and Fairyland. He co-wrote the libretto and lyrics for Rudolf Friml's 1925 operetta The Vagabond King, and is noted for his 1923 English translation of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac.
References
Further reading Green, Stanley (1976), Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre, Dodd, Mead, p. 195. Yardley, Jonathan (2005) "Cyrano, Gaining in the Translation", The Washington Post, February 2, 2005, p. C01. Accessed July 10, 2025.
External links
"Selected poetry, fiction and essays by Brian Hooker", from the archives of Harper's Magazine Books by Brian Hooker at Google Books