The Red Sweet Wine of Youth—The Brave and Brief Lives of the War Poets

The poetry that emerged from the trenches of WWI is a remarkable body of work, at once political manifesto and literary beacon for the twentieth century. In this passionate recreation of the lives of the greatest poets to come out of the conflict, Nicholas Murray brilliantly reveals the men themselves as well as the struggle of the artist to live fully and to bear witness in the annihilating squalor of battle. Bringing into sharp focus the human detail of each life, using journals, letters, and literary archives, Murray brings to life the men's indissoluble comradeship, their complex sexual mores and their extraordinary courage. Poignant, vivid, and unfailingly intelligent, Nicholas Murray's study offers new and finely tuned insight into the—often devastatingly brief—lives of a remarkable generation of men.

Nicholas Murray is the acclaimed biographer of Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold, Andrew Marvell, Aldous Huxley and Kafka and, most recently, a book about Victorian travel, A Corkscrew is Most Useful.