29 Facts About John Masefield

John Edward Masefield was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967.

John Masefield's mother died giving birth to his sister when Masefield was six, and he went to live with his aunt.

John Masefield's father died soon afterwards, following a mental breakdown.

John Masefield spent several years aboard this ship, and found that he could spend much of his time reading and writing.

John Masefield gives an account of life aboard the Conway in his book New Chum.

John Masefield was awed by the beauty of nature, including a rare sighting of a nocturnal rainbow, on this voyage.

John Masefield eventually returned home to England as a passenger aboard a steamship.

In 1895 John Masefield returned to sea on a windjammer destined for New York City.

Ten years later John Masefield wrote to Scott to tell him what reading that poem had meant to him:.

From 1895 to 1897 John Masefield was employed at the huge Alexander Smith carpet factory in Yonkers, New York, where long hours were expected and conditions were far from ideal.

John Masefield purchased up to 20 books a week, and devoured both modern and classical literature.

In 1897, John Masefield returned home to England as a passenger aboard a steamship.

In 1901, when John Masefield was 23 he met his future wife, Constance de la Cherois Crommelin, who was 35 and of Huguenot descent.

In 1902 John Masefield was put in charge of the fine arts section of the Arts and Industrial Exhibition in Wolverhampton.

John Masefield then wrote two novels, Captain Margaret and Multitude and Solitude.

At about this time John Masefield moved his country retreat from Buckinghamshire to Lollingdon Farm in Cholsey, the setting that inspired a number of poems and sonnets under the title Lollingdon Downs, and which his family used until 1917.

John Masefield then met the head of British Military Intelligence in France and was asked to write an account of the Battle of the Somme.

In 1918 John Masefield returned to America on his second lecture tour, spending much of his time speaking and lecturing to American soldiers waiting to be sent to Europe.

John Masefield entered the 1920s as an accomplished and respected writer.

John Masefield's family was able to settle on Boar's Hill, a somewhat rural setting not far from Oxford, where Masefield took up beekeeping, goat-herding and poultry-keeping.

John Masefield continued to meet with success: the first edition of his Collected Poems sold about 80,000 copies.

In 1921 John Masefield gave the British Academy's Shakespeare Lecture and received an honorary doctorate of literature from the University of Oxford.

John Masefield was similarly a founding member, in 1924, of the Scottish Association for the Speaking of Verse.

John Masefield later came to question whether the Oxford events should continue as a contest, considering that they might better be run as a festival.

John Masefield took his appointment seriously and produced a large quantity of poems for royal occasions, which were sent to The Times for publication.

John Masefield's modesty was shown by his inclusion of a stamped and self-addressed envelope with each submission so that the poem could be returned if it was found unacceptable.

John Masefield encouraged the continued development of English literature and poetry, and began the annual awarding of the Royal Medals for Poetry for a first or second published edition of poems by a poet under the age of 35.

However, the following verse by John Masefield was discovered later, addressed to his "Heirs, Administrators, and Assigns":.

Interest groups such as the John Masefield Society ensure the longevity of Masefield's opus.