Renowned : Rupert Brooke wrote celebrated poems such as The Soldier . The myth paints him as an Edwardian hero and a romantic symbol for a lost generation . But a new book about Rupert Brooke ’ s affair with suffragette Phyllis Gardner reveals the shocking truth about the poet a century after his death . He was a celebrity of his age , lauded by Winston Churchill as among ‘ England ’ s noblest sons ’ , and described by WB Yeats as ‘ the handsomest young man in England ’ . But the writer of celebrated poems such as The Soldier is now shown to have been a fierce opponent of women ’ s rights who privately declared , ‘ All women are beasts ’ . The book , The Second I Saw You : The True Love Story of Rupert Brooke and Phyllis Gardner , draws on forgotten letters between the pair , as well as Gardner ’ s unpublished memoir . Brooke died from septicaemia in April 1915 as a Royal Navy reserve officer on his way to take part in the Gallipoli landings after a mosquito bite became infected . He was just 27 and the book is being released by The British Library to mark the centenary of his passing . Gardner and Brooke met when he was 25 and she was 22 and they set opposite each other on a train to Cambridge . Gardner wrote in her journal that neither spoke to the other but she spent the time sketching him and added : ‘ I drew him steadily all the way to Cambridge and the more I drew him the better I liked him. ’ She was the daughter of eminent archaeologist Ernest Arthur Gardner and it was her mother , an amateur poet who longed to be a member of literary circles , who encouraged the affair . The young Gardner soon became infatuated , writing the poet was : ‘ The Alpha and Omega of my life ’ . Brooke was a celebrity of his age , lauded by Winston Churchill as among ‘ England ’ s noblest sons ’ Brooke seems to have been awkward and unsure in his feelings but did compose the poem Beauty and Beauty for her . However , after initial trysts , including night time skinny dipping Bryon ’ s Pool in Grantchester , the affair turned cold . It was under this strain that Brooke ’ s true feelings began to surface , with him declaring : ‘ All women are beasts ! And they want a vote - but they ’ ll never get it , ’ an insult to Gardner ’ s suffragette activities . The poet ’ s repressed sexuality has been widely discussed by academics and Gardner writes how her lover , who she described as boring in bed , finally managed to express his opinions on sexuality . He said : ‘ There are two ways of loving , the normal and the wandering . The normal is to love and marry one person , the wandering is to take what one wants where one finds it , to be friends here , lovers there , married there , to spend a day with one , a week with others ’ . Gardner ’ s mother finally decided to end the relationship and Brooke fled abroad . He died two years later . Gardner finished her memoir in 1918 but it was never published . She died from breast cancer in 1939 and , nine years later , the documents were given to the British Museum by his sister , Delphis . She was not revealed to have been his lover until 2000 , when the letters and memoir were first unearthed by the British Library .
Celebrated writer produced renowned war poems including The Soldier . A new book claims he privately declared that ‘ all women are beasts ’ and was a ‘sexual deviant’.