Rupert Brooke

Since his death in the First World War, Brooke has been identified with a romantic myth of a lost world where church clocks stood still and there was eternal honey for tea. But, as this book shows, the truth about Brooke was both more shocking and a lot more interesting. Drawing on a mass of documentation, much of it unpublished, this new biography brings out the full story behind one of the century's most enduring literary legends. This book conclusively demolishes the myth of the untarnished golden boy of English poetry. Using original documentation - much from Rupert Brooke's own hand - this biography shows that the poet hailed by Churchill as one of "England's noblest sons" was in reality sexually ambivalent, paranoiac, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and sometimes plain mad. He was also one of the most gifted spirits of his age who charmed (almost) all who met him. Overturning the carefully crafted image erected by his friends, this is a biography that will change forever one of our most cherished national legends.