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Paragon of youthful beauty, romantic symbol of a lost England, and precociously gifted poet, Rupert Chawner Brooke died in a hospital ship off the Aegean island of Skyros in April 1915, aged just 27. All England mourned his passing.
But behind the glow of myth lies a darker reality. At the height of his promise a disappointment in love triggered a mental and physical collapse that brought his inner complexities to the surface. Letters reveal a man who was sexually ambivalent, misogynistic, anti-Semitic - and sometimes alarmingly unstable.
This revised edition of Nigel Jones's admired biography, including an account of a previously unknown affair of Brooke's, reveals a more conflicted and troubled individual than the gilded Adonis of English literary myth.
About the author
Nigel Jones is an author, a former editor at History Today and BBC history magazines, and has been a TV and radio broadcaster.
Summary
A candid, sometimes shocking, biography of Rupert Brooke reveals that the very different reality behind the golden-boy facade of this English literary icon.
Additional text
This closely observed account of the poet and his privileged milieu is an absorbing read' The Independent.
Report
'Intelligent, witty and definitive: this is literary biography at its best' Andrew Roberts
