John McCrae

author

John McCrae

1872–1918

Best remembered for the haunting wartime poem In Flanders Fields, this Canadian physician, soldier, and writer turned front-line experience into some of the most enduring lines to come out of World War I. His life joined medicine, military service, and poetry in a way that still resonates today.

2 Audiobooks

In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems

In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems

by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae

About the author

Born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1872, John McCrae trained as a physician and also served as a soldier. He studied at the University of Toronto, worked as a doctor and teacher, and had already written poetry before the First World War began.

When war came, he served with Canadian forces in Europe as a medical officer. In 1915, after the death of a friend during the Second Battle of Ypres, he wrote In Flanders Fields, the poem that made his name known around the world and later helped inspire the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

McCrae continued his medical and military work during the war and died in France in 1918. More than a century later, he is remembered not only as a poet, but also as a doctor and officer whose writing captured grief, duty, and remembrance with remarkable clarity.