John Betjeman and Cornwall

Quintessentially English, Sir John Betjeman was an outsider in England and doubly so in his adopted home of Cornwall, where, as he was the first to admit, he was a foreigner. Nonetheless, as this book describes, the former Poet Laureate strove to acquire a veneer of Cornishness, discovering his own Welsh ancestry and cultivating an alternative Celtic identity that he wove during sojourns in Ireland, the other Celtic countries, and even Australia. Here eminent Cornish studies scholar Philip Payton provides a lively new account of the life of one of Britain’s most beloved poets, offering new insights into his work and his defining lifelong relationship with Cornwall.