War with Germany, so often imagined and predicted, broke out when people were least prepared for it. A theatrical diva prepares to shock her audience, while an English poet in the making sets out on a midsummer railway journey that result in the creation of a poem that remains loved and widely known to this day. This book deals with this topic.

Mark Bostridge won the Gladstone Memorial Prize at Oxford University. His first book Vera Brittain: A Life was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Prize, the NCR Non-Fiction Award, and the Fawcett Prize. His books also include the bestselling Letters from a Lost Generation; Lives for Sale, a collection of biographers' tales; Because You Died; and The Fateful Year: England 1914 published in 2014. Florence Nightingale was awarded the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography.