JOHN MASEFIELD
Secure in a high place in the ranks of English writers, John Masefield has attained that enviable position through various means. He is distinguished not alone as a poet, but also as dramatist, historian, novelist, and writer of short stories. But it is as a poet, and particularly as a narrative poet, that he gained his first and perhaps most lasting fame.
John Masefield was born in Ledbury, Herefordshire, on June 1, 1878. Both his father and mother died while he was still a young boy, and with the other Masefield children he went to live at the home of an aunt in Ledbury. Here he grew up, attending the local school. While still a young boy he evinced a strong proclivity for adventure. Tramping the countryside and roaming the woods appealed to him more than studying indoors. In an endeavor to curb his venturesome spirit he was indentured, when fourteen years of age, to a merchant ship. Then began the experiences that so vividly burned themselves into the memory of the restless, sensitive youth. For several years he sailed the sea to many parts of the world, visiting strange lands, always storing up impressions that later were to help him on his way to fame.
The desire to write had always been with him. When ten years old he had read Sir Walter Scott's poems and Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, and at fourteen was deep in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. These became his favorite poems, and he wrote some imitations of them. During his time at sea he had little opportunity to read or write, so he left the service when not yet seventeen years old, and in April, 1895, landed in New York, with five dollars, his clothes, and a deep yearning for a literary career. Soon he was domiciled in a garret in Greenwich Village, subsisting on the fare provided through his meagre earnings in any odd jobs he could secure. Among
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