author
Rupert Brooke
1887–1915
Best known for the wartime sonnet "The Soldier," he became one of the most famous young poets of the First World War. His lyrical, idealistic verse — and his death at just 27 — helped turn him into a lasting literary figure.
4 Audiobooks
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke
by Rupert Brooke
1914, and Other Poems
by Rupert Brooke
Letters from America
by Rupert Brooke
Selected Poems
by Rupert Brooke
About the author
Born in Rugby, England, in 1887, Rupert Brooke studied at Rugby School and later at King's College, Cambridge. He was associated with the Georgian poets and was admired in his own lifetime for both his lyrical style and his striking public image.
Brooke is most closely linked with the sonnet sequence 1914 and especially "The Soldier," a poem that came to symbolize an early, idealized response to the First World War. Although often remembered mainly as a war poet, he also wrote love poems, travel pieces, and reflective verse that show a wider range than his reputation sometimes suggests.
In 1915, while serving with the Royal Naval Division, he died of illness on his way to the Gallipoli campaign and was buried on the Greek island of Skyros. His early death strongly shaped how later readers saw him: as a gifted, bright young poet whose work captured a brief and poignant moment before the war's full devastation was understood.