{"title":"Sir John Betjeman","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the charming verse of Sir John Betjeman, a poet laureate who captured the spirit of Britain with wit and affection. From suburbia to seaside towns, discover his evocative poetry collections.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"john-betjeman-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780571230990","title":"John Betjeman","description":"In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.  Sir John Betjeman (1906-1984) was born in Highgate, the son of a manufacturer of Dutch descent. After university he joined the staff of the Architectural Review, thereafter working as a journalist and, during the Second World War, for various government departments. His first book of poems was Mount Zion (1931), followed by numerous collections, notably A Few Late Chrysanthemeumns (1954). His poetry enjoyed immense popularity, as did his personality, and his knighthood in 1969 and appointment as Poet Laureate in 1972 were almost universally welcomed.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49520614310161,"sku":"GOR002194994","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50263506518289,"sku":"GOR008162706","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53503418794257,"sku":"GOR005333205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571230997.jpg?v=1758967734"},{"product_id":"harvest-bells-book-sir-john-betjeman-9781472966384","title":"Harvest Bells","description":"A charming new collection of previously unpublished and uncollected poems by Sir John Betjeman.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49525025308945,"sku":"GOR010036175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49594805813521,"sku":"GOR010116018","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49732114055441,"sku":"NGR9781472966384","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53251955884305,"sku":"GOR012055567","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1472966384.jpg?v=1751435156"},{"product_id":"betjemans-best-british-churches-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780007415670","title":"Betjemans Best British Churches","description":"A beautiful and practical up-to-date guide to over two thousand of Britains best parish churches.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49533274161425,"sku":"GOR003206738","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49616802218257,"sku":"CIN0007415672G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49788474032401,"sku":"GOR006249575","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50325974614289,"sku":"GOR008148118","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50869688205585,"sku":"GOR010166201","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0007415672.jpg?v=1751444968"},{"product_id":"john-betjeman-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780571247028","title":"John Betjeman","description":"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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49539352428817,"sku":"GOR003266872","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49729559036177,"sku":"NGR9780571247028","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50353772232977,"sku":"CIN0571247024A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50357416395025,"sku":"CIN0571247024G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50735291662609,"sku":"GOR004907919","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108870254865,"sku":"GOR010377902","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571247024.jpg?v=1758967672"},{"product_id":"ghastly-good-taste-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780571245680","title":"Ghastly Good Taste","description":"'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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49560549261585,"sku":"GOR009321947","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53237047132433,"sku":"NLS9780571245680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571245684.jpg?v=1751444217"},{"product_id":"first-and-last-loves-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780571245697","title":"First and Last Loves","description":"'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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49602943910161,"sku":"GOR013596790","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50490706624785,"sku":"GOR005161808","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53237047656721,"sku":"NLS9780571245697","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571245692.jpg?v=1777371498"},{"product_id":"john-betjeman-s-collected-poems-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780881620702","title":"John Betjeman's Collected Poems","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49655540351249,"sku":"GOR013446832","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49663851069713,"sku":"GOR007096768","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50511091368209,"sku":"CIN088162070XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50834832032017,"sku":"GOR003969536","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/088162070X.jpg?v=1750819173"},{"product_id":"collected-poems-book-sir-john-betjeman-9780374126537","title":"Collected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eCome, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough\u003cbr\u003e To get it ready for the plough.\u003cbr\u003e The cabbages are coming now;\u003cbr\u003e The earth exhales.\u003cbr\u003e --from \"Slough\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When the beloved English poet John Betjeman's \u003ci\u003eCollected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e first appeared in 1958, it made publishing history, and has now sold more than two million copies to a steadily expanding readership. Betjeman is almost unique among poets in that his work appeals equally strongly to those who love poetry and to those who rarely read it. This volume, the first American edition of the \u003ci\u003eCollected Poems,\u003c\/i\u003e incorporates all the poems that Betjeman published after the original \u003ci\u003eCollected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e and includes a new foreword by Britain's poet laureate, Andrew Motion.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50102917628177,"sku":"GOR013856338","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50190073069841,"sku":"GOR004692635","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50349393641745,"sku":"CIN0374126534G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50350870561041,"sku":"CIN0374126534VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51001770869009,"sku":"NIN9780374126537","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52602839007505,"sku":"CIN0374126534A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B007YZRO2Q.jpg?v=1750910272"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-sir-john-betjeman.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}