The Life and Mysterious Death of Poet and Intelligence Agent Stephen Haggard, 1911–1943

Actor, memoirist, novelist, playwright and poet, Stephen Haggard was a highly individual figure in the English literature and theatre of the 1930s and Second World War. Haggard was born in Guatemala City in 1911, the son of a British colonial officer – who was a nephew of H. Rider Haggard – and his French-Canadian wife. He died in mysterious circumstances in 1943 while serving with British Army Intelligence in the Middle East.

Ross Davies’s biography retraces Stephen Haggard’s brief yet vivid and crowded life and work. From a colonial childhood and education in England, the Haggard story moves on to prewar theatre studies in Munich, stardom on the London and New York stages and from there to service with the Army, the BBC, the Special Operations Executive and its rival Political Warfare Executive. Davies shows that Haggard felt verse to be his vital outlet, artistic and emotional, although he did not seek publication until the outbreak of Hitler’s war. Wartime poems such "The Tear" and "Lotus" struck a chord with the many other young men and women who had to set aside civilian life, and Haggard's widow Morna collected the verse for publication with his memoir I’ll Go to Bed at Noon (1944). In this book, Davies traces a fascinating life story that has been largely lost from view and makes a convincing case for Haggard's important contribution to the interwar literary and cultural scene.