Betjeman, Sir John (bĕt`jəmən), 1906–84, English poet, b. London. Traditional in rhyme and meter, his verse combined a witty appraisal of the English present with nostalgia for England's past, especially the Victorian past. His published collections include Mt. Zion (1933), Continental Dew (1937), Old Lights for New Chancels (1940), A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954), High and Low (1966), Metro–Land (1977), Church Poems (1981), and Collected Poems (1971 and 2006). He also wrote numerous architectural studies, including Ghastly Good Taste or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture (1933, rev. ed. 1971) and A Pictorial History of English Architecture (1972). Knighted in 1969, he was named poet laureate of England in 1972.

Bibliography

See Summoned by Bells (1960), an autobiography in verse; biographies by P. Taylor-Martin (1983), B. Hillier (1988 and 2002), and A. N. Wilson (2006); B. Hillier, John Betjeman: A Life in Pictures (1984); C. L. Green, ed., John Betjeman Letters (2 vol., 1994–95); studies by M. L. Stapleton (1974) and F. Delaney (1983).

Betjeman, Sir John

(born Aug. 28, 1906, London, Eng.—died May 19, 1984, Trebetherick, Cornwall) English poet. His poetry volumes include Mount Zion (1933), High and Low (1966), and A Nip in the Air (1974), and his prose works include guidebooks to English counties and essays on places and buildings. His nostalgia for the near past, his exact sense of place, and his precise rendering of social nuance made him widely read at a time when much of what he wrote about was vanishing. From 1972 until his death he served as poet laureate of England.