A member of the generation of British poets who achieved fame during World War I, Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) burst on the literary scene when two of his war sonnets ("The Dead" and "The Soldier") were published in London's Times Literary Supplement on March 11, 1915. Less than two months later his 1914 and Other Poems was published and went through 24 impressions by June, 1918. After being inducted into the British Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Brooke sailed on a Navy ship in February, 1915, heading toward the fighting at Gallipoli in Turkey. He died shortly thereafter, at age 27, on a French hospital ship moored off Skyros in the Aegean Sea from sepsis derived from an infected mosquito bite. Brooke was buried in an olive grove on Skyros.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is one of America's greatest and best-loved writers.

Known as the father of the detective story, Poe is perhaps most famous for his short stories particularly his shrewd mysteries and chilling, often grotesque tales of horror he was also an extremely accomplished poet and a tough literary critic.

Poe's life was not far removed from the drama of his fiction. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by a foster family. As a young man, he developed problems with gambling, debts, and alcohol, and was even dismissed from the army.

His love life was marked by tragedy and heartbreak. Despite these difficulties, Poe produced many works now considered essential to the American literary canon.