Rupert Brooke

Keith Hale, editor of Friends & Apostles: The Correspondence of Rupert Brooke and James Strachey, 1905-1914, here examines the bowdlerization of Brooke in existing biographies and looks into the poet's self-proclaimed bisexual identity. Hale examines the same-sex relationships Brooke enjoyed with Michael Sadleir, Charles Lascelles, and Denham Russell-Smith as well as the poems Brooke may have written about these early loves. As with many boys of his generation, Brooke’s public school days affected him more profoundly than any period of his life. During his years at Rugby, Rupert was involved in romantic relationships with three boys. In order, Denham Russell-Smith entered Rugby in May 1902, age thirteen. Michael Sadleir followed in May 1903, age fourteen, making him and Denham the same age. Charles Lascelles entered in May 1904 at age fourteen. Thus, two of Brooke’s Rugby loves were two years his junior, and the boy he appears to have loved most, Lascelles, was three years younger. Rupert Brooke was a man of his time, just not the man Winston Churchill and the early Brooke Trustees made him out to be. He was delivered a serious disservice by being labeled a "war poet," and was dealt further injustice when critics dismissed his poetry as detached from his life experience. This volume begins with Keith Hale tying Brooke's early poems to his Rugby romantic friendships and discussing Brooke's sexuality in some detail. The Collected Poems and Letters from America are then presented in their entirety together with the original introduction to the letters by Henry James.