Forever England: The Life of Rupert Brooke

(Paperback)

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Rupert Brooke, strikingly good-looking, charming and gifted, has for many become the embodiment of a generation that was all but wiped out between 1914 and 1918. The legend was largely brought about by the words of one of his sonnets: 'If I should die, think only this of me/That there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.' The poem, and all that it represented, became the focal point of a nation's grief for its lost youth. Brooke died in April 1915 on board a ship in the Aegean Sea, en route to fight at Gallipoli. Walter de la Mare, D.H. Lawrence, John Masefield and Siegfried Sassoon all sang the praises of the poet that Yeats had considered 'the handsomest young man in England'. Churchill wrote his obituary for The Times and declared, 'We shall never see his like again...' In Forever England, Mike Read explores Brooke's life, from schooldays to the Great War, and in so doing builds a remarkable picture of a long-lost England and a generation's descent into war. Brooke's poems emerge dramatically from a tangled web of love, friendship, mental illness and politics. He reveals also the existence of a previously unrecorded love child from a South Seas romance.

Reviews

'The passion that lies on every page will make every word worth reading.' All About History

Author Bio

As a radio host, songwriter, journalist and television presenter, Mike Read's career has spanned many decades and vocations. His stints at the helm of iconic shows such as Top of the Pops and The Radio One Breakfast Show, as well as collaborations with the greats of media, music, and broadcasting, have cemented his status as a household name for over thirty years. With a plethora of shows, musicals and books to his name, Mike continues to delight audiences with daily radio programmes for the BBC and Magic, and a regular reviewer slot on Sky News. He lives in Henley, Oxfordshire.