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W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender were the cutting-edge English poets of their generation, influential inter-war figures on the cusp of culture and politics, of imperialism and anti-imperialism. By a curious quirk of history, both their older brothers were mountain explorers - John Bicknell Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas, while Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the north face of the Everest. While their younger brothers achieved literary fame, John Auden and Michael Spender vied to be included in the expedition that would deliver an Englishman to the summit of Everest, a quest that became a metaphor for Britain to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: both men fell in love with the same vivacious woman, the painter Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine where each man's wartime fate and loyalties would lie, with England and its unraveling empire, or elsewhere.
W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender were the cutting-edge English poets of their generation, influential inter-war figures on the cusp of culture and politics, of imperialism and anti-imperialism. By a curious quirk of history, both their older brothers were mountain explorers - John Bicknell Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalayas, while Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the north face of the Everest. While their younger brothers achieved literary fame, John Auden and Michael Spender vied to be included in the expedition that would deliver an Englishman to the summit of Everest, a quest...
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