Summoned by Bells: A Verse Autobiography

by JohnBetjeman (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $4.04

  Summoned by Bells has become a classic. Shortly after it was published in 1960 it was heralded as the verse autobiography of the century. It is a uniquely evocative narrative of the agonies and delights of growing up, set against the familiar backgrounds of Highgate, Cornwall, Marlborough and Oxford, and recounted in a way that has endeared Betjeman to generations of readers.

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.29

  From the leafy streets of Edwardian Hampstead to the halls of Oxford, this is the stirring early life of John Betjeman told in his own lively blank verse. Betjeman describes in lush detail hisformative years: the sounds and smells of a middle-class childhood spent in Cornwall; his discovery of literature and poetry; his turning away from the life of trade set before him. Stunning and engaging, Betjeman s words continue to strike and thrill successive generations of poets.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.44

  Betjeman is arguably Britain's best-loved and most widely read poet. Summoned By Bells, his verse autobiography, is brim-full of classic Betjeman themes. It tells the story of a boy's growth to early manhood - seaside holidays, meddling aunts, school bullies, an unexpected moment of religious awakening, then Oxford, and sparkling pen-portraits of the literary greats he met there. His unabashedly musical verse is poignant, comic, reverent, defiant, devoted and, always, full of feeling.