Forever England: The Life of Rupert Brooke

by Mike Read

Good-looking, charming and gifted, Rupert Brooke is the tragic embodiment of the generation lost between 1914 and 1918. His romantic war poetry stands in striking contrast to the work of more disillusioned contemporaries such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. But as this searching biography makes clear, his private letters reveal a far more troubled and misunderstood man, caught in a tangled web of secret affairs and mental instability.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few books that brought tears to my eyes from it poignancy. It will soon be 100 years since Rupert Brooke died so tragically but he is a man to trandscend generations with his poetry and his 'savoir vivre'. He would not be out of place today. Mike Read has done a wonderful job of bringing the romantic back to life in our imaginations. Thank you, Mike Read. it is a book I will read time and again...

[Bodil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some years ago my son and I walked from Cambridge to Grantchester and had a lovely cream tea at The Orchard. I think that this was the first time I really heard about Rupert Brooke. (I am afraid that I find poetry a bit heavy going in English!) Anyhow, I found this biography of him interesting. He must have a very special, and also a very complicated, person who lived in a very different time. There are a great number of names in this book, and I am afraid that I lost track of many of them. Although some of them, such as Virginia Woolf and Gwen Raverat, are very familiar to me, I could have used a list of all them!

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

i love this man. thus- i don't think any biography could do him justed. i read this through jaded eyes.