John Betjeman

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.

L T C Rolt was one of a small group of amateur railwaymen who made their dream of running their own railway come true. His vivid and often amusing account of this unique achievement is a record of individual enterprise and creative effort as refreshing as it is rare. Established by Act of Parliament in 1865 and unaffected by mergers and nationalisation, the Talyllyn Railway has been serving a remote and beautiful valley in the Merioneth mountains ever since. In 1950, the line was threatened with closure, and it was at that moment that the amateurs came to the rescue. It is now the oldest surviving railway of its kind in the world. This book is delightful reading for both railway devotees and lovers of the Welsh countryside, which is so beautifully described here.'Come and join this railway adventure set amidst the magnificent mountain background of Wales - this should appeal to a whole new generation of enthusiasts.' - Steam Railway News'This book remains essential reading, not only for those who love this corner of Wales and its railway, but all who have a genuine interest in what motivates people to try and preserve this part of our heritage.' - Push and Pull

For more than half a century, Betjeman's writings have awakened readers to the intimacy of English places - from the smell of gaslight in suburban churches, to the hissing of backwash on a shingle beach. Betjeman is England's greatest topologist: whether he's talking about a townhall or a teashop, he gets to the nub of what makes unexpected places unique. This new collection of his writings, arranged geographically, offers an essential gazetteer to the physical landmarks of Betjeman Country.A new addition to the popular series of Betjeman anthologies, following on from Trains and Buttered Toast and Tennis Whites and Teacakes, this is a treasure trove for any Betjeman fan and for anyone with a love for the rare, curious and unique details of English life.

Sir John Betjeman (1906-84) was born in Highgate, the son of a manufacturer of Dutch descent. His poetry enjoyed immense popularity, as did his personality, and his knighthood in 1969 and appointment as Poet Laureate in 1972 were universally welcomed.Other volumes in this series: Auden, Eliot, Plath, Hughes and Yeats.

'My own interest started in seeking out what was old. When the guide told me that this was the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept, I believed him. When owners of country cottages in Suffolk told me their cottage was a thousand years old, I believed them too. I thought that this or that church was the smallest in England, and that secret passages ran under ruined monasteries, so that monks could get to the nearest convent without being seen. The older anything was the lovelier I thought it.'Most famous for his poetry, John Betjeman was also passionate about architecture, 'preferring all centuries to my own'. In his first prose work, Ghastly Good Taste (1933), he vigorously defends his love of Victorian and Edwardian architecture, considered deeply unfashionable at the time. With the savage humour of his famous satire 'Slough', he attacks notions of Modernism and (at the other extreme) unthinking antiquarianism.

'Oh prams on concrete balconies, what will your children see? Oh white and antiseptic life in school and home and clinic, oh soul-destroying job with handy pension, oh loveless life of safe monotony, why were you created?'First and Last Loves is a collection of Betjeman's essays on architecture, first published to coincide with an exhibition at the Soane Museum, and a worthwhile volume in its own right. Introduced with a lively tirade against mediocrity entitled 'Love is Dead', Betjeman discusses a range of topics including conservation battles, modern architecture and his passion for railways.

Tennis Whites and Teacakes brings together the best of Betjeman's poetry, private letters, journalism and musings to present a fully rounded picture of what he stood for. From his arguments for new steel buildings to his amusement about the etiquette of village teashops, it reveals Betjeman not just as a sentimentalist but as a passionate observer with a wonderful sense of humour and an acute eye.

Eccentric, sentimental and homespun, John Betjeman's passions were mostly self-taught. He saw his country being devastated by war and progress and he waged a private war to save it. His only weapons were words - the poetry for which he is best known and, even more influential, the radio talks that first made him a phenomenon. From fervent pleas for provincial preservation to humoresques on eccentric vicars and his own personal demons, Betjeman's talks combined wit, nostalgia and criticism in a way that touched the soul of his listeners from the 1930s to the 1950s. Now collected in book form for the first time, his broadcasts represent one of the most compelling archives of twentieth-century broadcasting, reawakening the modern reader to Betjeman's unique perspective and the compelling magic of the golden age of wireless.

A first American edition of the mid-twentieth-century British poet laureate's major works collects the complete body of his published works since the publication of his original volume and features a new foreword by fellow poet laureate Andrew Motion. Original.

'It would be difficult - in my opinion impossible - to point to a contemporary poet of greater originality or more genuine depth of feeling' Anthony PowellTHE DEFINITIVE JOHN BETJEMAN COLLECTION, REISSUED FOR THE CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTHCollected Poems made publishing history when it first appeared, and has now sold more than two million copies, to an ever-growing readership. This newly expanded edition includes Betjeman's verse autobiography, Summoned by Bells. With a new Introduction by Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, Collected Poems is the definitive Betjeman companion.Includes his verse autobiography Summoned by Bells in its entirety.

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.

From 1930 until shortly before his death he shared with countless readers, listeners and viewers his remarkably catholic passions for books, people and places.

These new poems, most of them written over the last eight or nine years, are as varied and as captivating as ever more of that inimitable Betjeman counterpoint that makes a new collection an occasion: places, human encounters, meditations, entertaining verbal fisticuffs with public hates, threnodies on lost friends, and the pensive regard of familiar vistas that now draw their warmth and color from nearer horizons. The poet Philip Larkin wrote in The Guardian "Almost alone among living poets he is in the best sense a committed writer, whose poems spring from what he really feels about real life, and as a result he brings back to poetry a sense of dramatic urgency it had all but lost."