Fatal Glamour: The Life of Rupert BrookeRupert Brooke (b. 1887) died on April 23, 1915, two days before the start of the Battle of Gallipoli, and three weeks after his poem "The Soldier" was read from the pulpit of St Paul's Cathedral on Easter Sunday. Thus began the myth of a man whose poetry crystallizes the sentiments that drove so many to enlist and assured those who remained in England that their beloved sons had been absolved of their sins and made perfect by going to war. In Fatal Glamour, Paul Delany details the person behind the myth to show that Brooke was a conflicted, but magnetic figure. Strikingly beautiful and able to fascinate almost everyone who saw him - from Winston Churchill to Henry James - Brooke was sexually ambivalent and emotionally erratic. He had a series of turbulent affairs with women, but also a hidden gay life. He was attracted by the Fabian Society’s socialist idealism and Neo-Pagan innocence, but could be by turns nasty, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic. Brooke’s emotional troubles were acutely personal and also acutely typical of Edwardian young men formed by the public school system. Delany finds a thread of consistency in the character of someone who was so well able to move others, but so unable to know or to accept himself. A revealing biography of a singular personality, Fatal Glamour also uses Brooke’s life to shed light on why the First World War began and how it unfolded. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 10 | |
Friendship and Love October 1906May 1909 | 30 |
3 The Fabian Basis October 1906December 1910 | 50 |
4 Apostles and Others October 1906October 1909 | 66 |
5 Grantchester JuneDecember 1909 | 78 |
6 Ten to Three JanuarySeptember 1910 | 100 |
7 Couples October 1910May 1911 | 115 |
10 To Germany with Love JanuaryApril 1912 | 167 |
11 The Funeral of Youth MayAugust 1912 | 183 |
12 Raymond Buildings August 1912May 1913 | 201 |
13 Stepping Westwards May 1913May 1914 | 225 |
14 The Soldier JuneDecember 1914 | 247 |
15 Gallipoli JanuaryApril 1915 | 274 |
Notes | 293 |
| 319 | |
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affair April Asquith Badley beauty became Bedales Bedalian Békássy Bloomsbury boys British Bryn Bryn’s Cambridge camp Cathleen Cathleen Nesbitt Churchill Cornford D.H. Lawrence Denham Dudley Ward Duncan Grant Eddie Marsh Eddie’s Eileen Elisabeth van Rysselberghe emotional England English Fabian father feel felt Frances Frances Cornford Friends and Apostles Gallipoli Geoffrey Keynes Germany Grantchester Gwen Gwen Darwin Gwen Raverat Henry Hillbrow Hugh Ibid intellectual Jacques Raverat Jacques’s James Strachey Justin Brooke Ka’s King’s knew later Leonard Woolf letter Limpsfield live London look lover Lulworth lust Lytton Strachey Margery marriage married months mother Munich Neo-pagans never night Noel Olivier Noel’s one’s Orwell Phyllis poems poet poetry public school Rugby Rupert Brooke Rupert told Rupert’s death Russell-Smith sexual sister Society sonnets stay Tahiti Tahitian there’s things took Virginia wanted Webb week woman women Woolf young