Rupert Brooke’s Sexual Histories

In 1947, a series of confidential letters were exchanged between a biographer and several intimate associates of Rupert Brooke. At the core of these letters (written by Maurice Browne and Geoffrey Keynes, among others) were allegations that Brooke had a “homosexual streak” and that he died, not of an infection that had turned septic, but rather of syphilis. Using this correspondence, other personal letters and memoirs, and public writings, this paper examines the sexual landscape of the first half of the twentieth century and explores several interconnected themes. The first of these relates to the ways in which individuals narrate sexual histories about themselves and others. The second discusses the relationship between sexual desire and celebrity, examining how Brooke’s admirers capitalized on his universal sexual appeal immediately following his death in 1915, but then sought to deny elements of that appeal in the fraught 1940s and 1950s. The third highlights how recent critical approaches to queer history might help us make sense both of Brooke’s fluid desires and the fixity that some sought to impose on his complex life story. 


Professor Paul R. Deslandes (University of Vermont) is a specialist in British history, the history of the British Empire, and the history of gender and sexuality. In addition to offering courses in these fields at UVM, he has also taught classes on the history of London and on LGBTQ+ history. Deslandes has written articles and reviews for many journals and is the author of The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain: From the First Photographs to David Beckham (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021), Notorious London: A City Tour (The Teaching Company, 2021), and Oxbridge Men: British Masculinity and the Undergraduate Experience, 1850-1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005/Paperback Version 2015). The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain was the 2022 recipient of the American Historical Association’s Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best book on a British history topic since 1485. His most recent essay, an examination of sex and sexuality in nineteenth-century London, will appear in the Cambridge World History of Sexualities. He is also currently editing a six-volume Cultural History of Beauty series for Bloomsbury Press.

- this seminar is free to attend, but advance registration is required.