September 1, 1939: A Biography of a Poem

This is a book about how and why we respond to great art.

It's a book about a poem - one of the most famous poems ever written, a poem whose troubled history involves its own rewriting and reinvention, and to which readers have returned again and again in times of personal and national crisis. It's a book about how works of literature are produced, consumed, and incorporated into people's lives.

It's also a book about a poet, the darling of the British literary establishment, a wunderkind, the victim and beneficiary of a literary cult of personality. The poem is his most famous and celebrated work - a poem he tried to suppress and disown, and that has been enjoyed and been condemned to a tragic and unexpected afterlife.

Finally, it's a book about a city, the defining city of the twentieth century. It's a book about a particular place and a particular time that remain our place and our time.