Historical person
Rupert Brooke
1887–1915
Rupert Brooke was an English poet whose early twentieth-century work combined Georgian literary culture, personal romanticism and an increasingly public reputation. Educated at Rugby and King’s College, Cambridge, he moved through literary and artistic circles, travelled widely and became known for poems including The Old Vicarage, Grantchester .
After the outbreak of the First World War Brooke served in the Royal Naval Division and wrote the sonnets that made him a prominent patriotic voice, especially The Soldier . He died of sepsis aboard a French hospital ship near Skyros in April 1915 while his unit was travelling towards the Dardanelles.
David Boyle’s Rupert Brooke is a compact biography that works against the idealised image created almost immediately after Brooke’s death. It follows his Cambridge and Bloomsbury connections, relationships, travel and poetry before examining the patriotic sonnets that made him a public voice of the war’s opening months. Brooke’s service with the Royal Naval Division and death from sepsis on Skyros before the Gallipoli landings allow Boyle to show how a complicated young poet was rapidly converted into a national symbol.
Non Fiction
Non Fiction featuring Rupert Brooke (1 book)
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.