Life, Death and Myth: Rupert Brooke

As well-tended legend has it, Rupert brooke was the quintessential romantic Englishman: handsome, charming, a soldier-poet who died young on his way to the battlefields of World War I. Now, in this immensely readable volume, the myth of thc golden boy of English letters is skillfully dispelled. Deconstructing the carefully crafted image promoted by his friends, this well-documented biography reveals a charismatic but deeply flawed human being—anti-Semitic, rampantly misogynistic, tormented by sexual ambivalence, jealousy, and paranoia. In Rupert Brooke: Life, Death and Myth Nigel Jones gives us a clear-eyed, admirably thorough account of one of England's most cherished cultural icons.