Siegfried Sassoon praised Isaac Rosenberg's genius” and T.S. Eliot called him the most extraordinary” of the Great War poets. This major reappraisal of his life and work by one of the leading authorities in World War I litereature is a fascinating biography. Rosenberg died on the Western Front in 1918 aged only 27, his tragic early death resembling that of many other well-known poets of that conflict. But he differed from the majority of Great War poets in almost every other respect: race, class, education, upbringing, experience, and technique. He was a skilled painter as well as a brilliant poet. The son of impoverished immigrant Russian Jews, he served as a private in the army and his perspective on the trenches is quite different from the other mainly officer-poets, allowing the voice of the "poor bloody Tommy" to be eloquently heard. Jean Moorcroft Wilson focuses on the relationship between Rosenberg's life and work, including his childhood in Bristol and the Jewish East End of London; his time at the Slade School of Art and friendship with David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, and Stanley Spencer; his visit to Cape Town, where he was staying when war broke out in August 1914 and where he fell in love with the divorced wife of South Africa's future Prime Minister; and his harrowing life as a private in the British Army.

Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet

Biographies & Memoirs

Moorcroft Wilson, Jean

Arts & Literature

Orion Publishing

Siegfried Sassoon: The Making of a War Poet, A Biography (1886-1918)

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Siegfried Sassoon: The Making of a War Poet, A biography (1886-1918)

Routledge

Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey from the Trenches, A Biography (1918-1967)

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), soldier, poet, and witness to a century of war, is an icon of the twentieth century; Jean Moorcroft Wilson is the leading authority on him. In this two-volume biography, she offers her definitive analysis of his life and works. The first critically acclaimed volume, covering Sassoon's life up until the end of the Great War, offers rich material on his poetry, his patriotism, and his anti-war stance. In volume two, Moorcroft Wilson reveals the truth of Sassoon's life after the armistice, when most people thought he was dead; the story includes a series of love affairs with such larger-than-life characters as Queen Victoria's great-grandson, Prince Phillip of Hesse, the flamboyant Ivor Novello, and the exotic and bejeweled Stephen Tennant. But this was also the period of Sassoon's close friendships with the greatest literary figures of the age, including Hardy, Beerbohm, E.M. Forster, and T.E. Lawrence. Written with the cooperation of Siegfried Sassoon's family and friends, and with access to a mass of private and unpublished material, poems, diaries, letters, and photographs, this meticulously researched biography will be the standard work on Sassoon's life and legacy.

Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey From The Trenches, A Biography (1918-1967)

Edward Thomas: from Adlestrop to Arras: A Biography

A war poet is not one who chooses to commemorate or celebrate a war, but one who reacts against having a war thrust upon him. Along with Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas is, by any reckoning, a major World War I poet. Alongside an illuminating understanding of Thomas's poetry, Jean Moorcroft Wilson explores the intriguing circumstances of the poet's life: his early marriage, his dependence on laudanum, his lively social life, which included many notable writers--among them Joseph Conrad, Edward Garnett, Rupert Brooke, and Hilaire Belloc--and even a ménage à trois with novelist Eleanor Farjeon. But though Thomas's personal life is the stuff of which myths are made--which posterity has been quick to oblige--Wilson pushes against this instinct, arguing that it has obscured Thomas's true worth as a writer.Edward Thomas's poems were not published until some months after his death in 1917, but they have never since been out of print. Described by Ted Hughes as "the father of us all," Thomas occupies a crucial place in the development of twentieth century poetry, with a distinctively modern sensibility remarkably in tune with our twenty-first century outlook. This is the extraordinary life of a poetic genius.

Bloomsbury Continuum

The writer and poet Robert Graves suppressed virtually all the poems he had published during and just after the First World War. Until his son, William Graves, reprinted almost all the Poems About War in 1988, Graves's status as a "war poet" seems to have depended mainly on his prose memoir Goodbye to All That. None of the previous biographies written on Graves attempt to deal with this paradox in any depth. The suppressed poems themselves have been largely neglected--until now.
Jean Moorcroft Wilson, celebrated biographer of Siegfried Sassoon and Edward Thomas, relates Graves' fascinating life during the period from his birth up until the early 1930s: his experiences in the war, his being left for dead at the Battle of the Somme, his move to Spain, and his final "goodbye" to Sassoon in 1933. In this deeply-researched new book, containing startling archival material never previously revealed and little-studied poems, Moorcroft Wilson traces how Graves' compelling life informed the development of his poetry during the First World War, his thinking about the conflict and his shifting attitude towards it. This illuminating look at Graves' life and poetic work reaffirms his place among the important poets of the Great War.
Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Goodbye to All That casts new light on the life, prose and poetry of Graves, without which the story of Great War Poetry is incomplete.

Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Good-bye to All That (1895-1929)

Along with Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas is by any reckoning a major first world war poet. A war poet is not one who chooses to commemorate or celebrate a war, but one who reacts against having a war thrust upon him. His great friend Robert Frost wrote 'his poetry is so very brave, so unconsciously brave.' Apart from a most illuminating understanding of his poetry, Dr Wilson shows how Thomas' life alone makes for absorbing reading: his early marriage, his dependence on laudanum, his friendships with Joseph Conrad, Edward Garnett, Rupert Brooke and Hilaire Belloc among others. The novelist Eleanor Farjeon entered into a curiousmenage a trois with him and his wife. He died in France in 1917, on the first day of the Battle of Arras. This is the stuff of which myths are made and posterity has been quick to oblige. But this has tended to obscure his true worth as a writer, as Dr Wilson argues. Edward Thomas's poems were not published until some months after his death, but they have never since been out of print. Described by Ted Hughes as 'the father of us all', Thomas's distinctively modern sensibility is probably the one most in tune with our twenty-first century outlook. He occupies a crucial place in the development of twentieth century poetry. This is the extraordinary life of a poetic genius.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Moorcroft Wilson, Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Moorcroft Wilson, Jean

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Moorcroft Wilson, Jean. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet

Siegfried Sassoon: The Making of a War Poet, A biography (1886-1918)

Siegfried Sassoon: The Journey From The Trenches, A Biography (1918-1967)

Edward Thomas: from Adlestrop to Arras: A Biography

Robert Graves: From Great War Poet to Good-bye to All That (1895-1929)

Edward Thomas: from Adlestrop to Arras: A Biography