Unseen Rupert Brooke letter to 'lovelorn' admirer to be sold

Correspondence from 1907 sees the 19-year-old poet advising college friend that ‘I am sorry you have placed me on a pedestal’

An unpublished letter in which a young Rupert Brooke advises his lovelorn friend Ernst Goldschmidt to not “place … me on a pedestal”, has been found in Goldschmidt’s archives, bundled together with two unsent letters from Goldschmidt in which he tries to lay out his feelings for the poet.

Brooke was 19 when he wrote to Goldschmidt on 25 March 1907, telling him that “I am sorry you have ‘built an altar in my heart’, and placed me on a pedestal … It is a mistake I made myself, once. Life is one of those ridiculous jests of which one never sees the point – until it is too late, and one does not appreciate the humour.”