MS 586 02 01 02

MS 586 02 01 02

Rupert Brooke collection: Letters between Brooke and Noel Olivier

File

Rupert Brooke met Noel Olivier in 1908, when she was fifteen. He fell in love with her and they were unofficially engaged for a time. This inherently difficult liaison was further complicated by Brooke's deciding in 1909 to lose his virginity with Denham Russell-Smith (1888/9–1912). Further chaste entanglements developed in 1910 and 1911 with Katherine (Ka) Laird Cox (1887–1938) and Elisabeth van Rysselberghe (1889/90–1980) respectively. Brooke's unresolved relationships with Noel and Ka precipitated a nervous breakdown in early 1912, after which he travelled and returned to England in June 1914. He joined the R.N. Hood Division at the end of 1914 and died of blood poisoning on the way to Gallipoli on 23 April 1915. The correspondence with Noel Olivier is fairly consistant and spans this entire period.

1909-1915

1 box

A complete series of autograph letters between Rupert Brooke and Noel Olivier, from January 1909 to 1915. The letters are often extensive and detailed, particularly those from Brooke, providing a unique insight into their relationship.

These papers were left to Noel Olivier's grandaughter, Pippa Harris, and then were sold to Howard Moseley.

The letters are ordered chronologically in small folders within the box.

134 of the letters were published in: Harris, Pippa (ed.) Song of love: the letters of Rupert Brooke and Noel Oliviers,1909-1915. London: Bloomslbury, 1991. The ECL copy (Kff.1.16) includes Howard Moseley's transcriptions of letters omitted from the book.