Charlotte Mew

This Rare Spirit: A life of Charlotte Mew

‘This Rare Spirit is a classic: the biography of Mew we have all been waiting for, by the best biographer we could have dreamt of; the life and work of an astonishing poet by an astonishing poet. Julia Copus is a compassionate and clairvoyant guide; her research meticulous, her prose lambent and her account riveting. By the time you reach the last page, you will find yourself grieving the loss of Charlotte Mew, returning to the beginning to read the book again, and reaching once more for Mew’s courageous and incandescent poems.’

Fiona Benson

‘An exquisitely told account of the life of an under-championed London poet whose work was admired by Hardy, Sassoon and Virginia Woolf. Julia Copus does her justice at last.’

Claire Tomalin

My biography of turn-of-the-century poet Charlotte Mew was published by Faber on 15 April 2021.