Tells the story of a boy's growth to early manhood, seaside holidays, meddling arts, school bullies and an unexpected moment of religious awakening.

John Betjeman was undoubtedly the most popular Poet Laureate since Tennyson. This book explores his identity through such Victorianism via the verse of that period, but also its architecture, religious faith and - more importantly - religious doubt.

A beautiful and practical up-to-date guide to over two thousand of Britain’s best parish churches.

This bibliography describes all John Betjeman's known writings, including his own books, contributions to periodicals and to books by others, lectures, and radio and television programs. Other categories include editorships and interviews, as well as a section devoted to writings about him. Manuscripts and drafts of his works are described in detail.

Much of the originality of John Betjeman as a poet, apart from the unique assonance of his haunting verse forms, comes from the sharp and affectionate gusto with which he introduces his readers to the people and places in a poetic world he has made so much his own. He has few rivals in the personal harmonics he draws from his themes and from the natural world as the setting for human hopes and achievements in all their odd, humorous, and poignant trajectories.

John Betjeman's unforgettable poems on landscape and suburbia, desire and death, faith and doubt, helped to establish him as the beloved voice of a nation. Yet the ten books of poetry he published individually, later assembled in the Collected Poems, were an incomplete representation of his poetic oeuvre. Many poems published in journals or magazines were excluded from Betjeman's books by him or his editors and a substantial number of finished poems were never printed at all, remaining unknown to readers – until now. In this exquisite new edition of Betjeman's verse editor Kevin Gardner promises new treasures for 'Betj's' admirers the world over. Betjeman wrote many of these poems in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when he was still developing his unique poetic voice. They reveal a young poet experimenting with both Modernism and post-Romanticism, yet influenced by Shelley and Pope among others. Some of these poems are profoundly psychological, personal and deeply affecting to read today. Several have the delicate and eccentric touch of much of his early poetry and shed new light on his growth as a young poet, while many others reflect the sustained maturity of his later verse. Almost all are typically amusing and highly witty in the style typical of Betjeman; some verge on the bawdy and even, in one instance, point towards homosexuality. These charming and surprising new discoveries, found in archives as far apart as Austin, Texas, and Christ Church, Oxford, will delight poetry lovers and introduce a whole new generation to Betjeman's unforgettable work.

Sir John Betjeman was one of the twentieth century's great makers of the Christian imagination. He was maybe the most significant literary figure of our time to declare his Christian faith and his terror of dying. Betjeman used his formidable gifts for poetry to show us how to think about the Anglican faith and about Englishness and Christianity in general. Here is an anthology of about 75 poems on religious themes, with clarifying footnotes and a critical introduction that offers an overview of his life and poetry as well as a commentary on some of his more difficult poems. Here is a new perspective on Betjeman's life and beliefs. This new edition of Betjeman's religious poetry will demonstrate that Betjeman is the great poet of the Church in the twentieth century; it will also introduce delightful, accessible and important poetry to new readers. It will suggest to both British and American readers ways of thinking about spiritual cultural and ecclesiastical matters as well as about the intersection of literature and art.

John Betjeman, appointed Poet Laureate in 1972, is celebrated as the best loved poet of the twentieth century. His subtle blend of wit and melancholia, affection and criticism continues to attract an ever-expanding readership. From beneath his sparkling wit and deceptively simple nostalgia, Betjeman emerges as the authority on a broad range of subjects from conservation and church architecture to tradition and Englishness. In this selection of his greatest poetry and prose, cherished classics such as Slough, Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden and A Subaltern’s Love-song sit beside rare gems like Metro-land, Betjeman’s critically acclaimed film script.

Written when Betjeman was 26 and criticised by the author himself in this edition for showing "sententiousness, arrogance and sweeping generalisation." Includes a potted autobiography of his early years showing how he came to write such a book.