13 Facts About Martin Booth

Martin Booth worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and was the founder of the Sceptre Press.

Martin Booth was born in Lancashire, England, as the son of Joyce and Ken Booth, the latter of which was a Royal Navy civil servant.

Martin Booth attended Kowloon Junior School, the Peak School, then King George V School, and left in 1964.

In England, Martin Booth worked as a truck driver, legal clerk, wine steward, and English teacher.

In 1974 Martin Booth was Poetry Editor of Fuller d'Arch Smith, founded by Timothy d'Arch Smith and Jean Overton Fuller.

Martin Booth had recently bought a house in Knotting in North Bedfordshire, and was instrumental in finding Fuller a house in Wymington which became the registered office of the company.

Martin Booth first made his name as a poet and as a publisher by producing elegant volumes by British and American poets, including slim volumes of work by Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

The book was named for the village in which Martin Booth was living at the time.

Martin Booth accumulated a library of contemporary verse, which allowed him to produce anthologies and lectures.

Martin Booth was a veteran traveller who retained an enthusiasm for flying, expressed in his poems, such as "Kent Says" and In Killing the Moscs.

Many of Martin Booth's works were linked to the British imperial past in China, Hong Kong and Central Asia.

Martin Booth was fond of the United States, where he had many poet friends, and of Italy, which features in many of his later poems and in his novel A Very Private Gentleman.

Martin Booth died of cancer in Devon in 2004, shortly after completing Gweilo, a memoir of his Hong Kong childhood written for his own children.