Peter J. Conradi 
A Very English Hero 
The Making of Frank Thompson

An untold story of love, idealism and courage in the Second World War




”
A very moving account of the all-too-brief life of a warrior-poet” Antony Beevor, author of
Stalingrad




”
An elegy for a lost generation, and a fascinating social and political history of a peculiar period in our recent past … it”s impossible to put down Conradi”s impressive and moving account of Thompson”s life without a feeling of regret.”
Mail on Sunday



Modest, handsome and a fine poet, eccentric Englishman Frank Thompson made an unlikely soldier.



Brother of E. P. Thompson and lover of Iris Murdoch, Frank was an intellectual idealist, a rare combination of brilliant mind and enormous heart. Of his wartime experiences, Frank wrote prodigiously. His letters, diaries and poetry still read fresh and intimate today – and it is from these that Peter J. Conradi brings vividly to life a brilliantly attractive and courageous personality.



Aged just twenty-three, Frank was captured, tortured and executed in Bulgaria. A soldier of principle and integrity, he fought a poet”s war; a very English hero from a very different era.