Letters, Volume One: 1926 to 1951

by John Betjeman, Candida Lycett Green (Editor)

This first volume of the selected letters of the late Poet Laureate John Betjeman covers his life from university days through to his period on the staff of The Architectural Review, as editor of the Shell Guides in the thirties, as Press Attache in Dublin during the War and as an increasingly popular broadcaster and public speaker in the late fourties. The letters, written both to friends and family and to artists and writers such as T. S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh and Cyril Connolly record Betjeman's passionate interest in poetry and architecture and his infectious sense of humour.

584 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 1994

Reviews

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up this slim volume on a whim. Betjeman, the people's poet, is funny and likable, sometimes switching into a Cockney idiom, sometimes serious. Many of the letters are trivial but others touch on faith, literature and how to write.