The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke: With a Memoir

1914

THE SOUTH SEAS

OTHER POEMS

GRANTCHESTER

1908—1911

EXPERIMENTS

1905-1908

I feel that an apology is due to those who have been looking for some time for a Memoir of my son. The chief reason for the delay has been my great desire to gain the collaboration of some of his contemporaries at Cambridge and during his young manhood, for I believe strongly that they knew the largest part of him. Up to now it has been found impossible to do this, much as I should have wished it; and as since his death many of them have also laid down their lives, there is no longer any hope of doing so in the future. I have therefore consented to the Memoir coming out now, although it is of necessity incomplete. I cannot speak strongly enough of the ability and loving care that Mr Marsh has given to the work. M. R. B. April 1918

This memoir was written in August 1915, a few months after Rupert Brooke's death, and my intention was to publish it with his collected poems in the course of that year. Circumstances prevented this, and now that three years have passed I ought probably to rewrite it in the changed perspective and on a different scale. As this is impossible for several reasons, I have had to be contented with a general revision, and the addition of letters which have since come into my hands.

I am very grateful to his Mother and to those of his friends who have allowed me to quote from his letters and from their accounts of him. E. M. April 1918.