Muse of Fire

”[Muse of Fire] is original and disturbing… Korda is particularly good on [Rupert] Brooke, whose nostalgia for thatched cottages and clear streams gave people an image of the Englishness they thought they were fighting for.” – Roger Lewis - The Mail on Sunday“Erudite and often funny… Korda’s group portrait of soldier poets skillfully depicts how different classes of men experienced the Western Front and offers an entry point into a rich seam of under-read war poetry.” – Alice Winn - The New York Times Book Review“Michael Korda’s group biography of Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and others is richly detailed and elegantly written…Korda, keenly attuned to the nuances of Britain’s class system and its overlapping literary circles, excels at tracing the bonds of acquaintance, collegiality, amity and sometimes physical attraction that knit these men to one another… engrossing.” – Julia M. Klein - The Washington Post“Korda… expertly traces his poets’ shifts in outlook and subject matter, and along the way showcases candid, visceral verse that has lost none of its power to shock and move … ‘Muse of Fire’ enlarges our understanding of  these men and gives us a renewed appreciation of their work. At the same time, it prompts us to contemplate the potential that was robbed and the talent that was wasted by the so-called war to end all wars.” – Malcom Forbes - The Wall Street Journal“Every page of Muse of Fire betrays a profound intimacy with both the ‘sheer horror’ of the war and, even more, of a time when ‘poetry mattered to people in a way it no longer does to us.’ Michael Korda’s unique angle allows him to break through the cliches and restores to us these poets with a fierce immediacy. His book is itself a moving memorial.” – Daniel Mendelsohn, author of An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic

Michael Korda participated in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. He is the author of major biographies of Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Robert E. Lee, as well as the best-selling memoir Charmed Lives.