Books: All One Could Wish ...

RED WINE OF YOUTH (287 pp.)—Arthur Stringer—Bobbs-Merrill ($4).

When the phrase "flower of England" was used to describe the young English dead in World War I, the name of Rupert Brooke was one of the first that usually came to mind. Headed for the Dardanelles assault in 1915, Brooke got septicemia from a lip infection, drowsed off in a fever on shipboard and was buried on the Aegean island of Skyros. He was 27. His generation, bred in formal beauty and ancient peace, numbered many gallant young men; but by all accounts Brooke had the...