Editing John Masefield (section)

===Early life===
Masefield was born in [[Ledbury]] in Herefordshire to George Masefield, a solicitor, and his wife Caroline (née Parker). He was baptised in the Church at Preston Cross, just outside Ledbury. His mother died giving birth to his sister when Masefield was six, and he went to live with his aunt. His father died soon afterwards, following a mental breakdown.<ref name=ondb>David Gervais. '[https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-34915 Masefield, John Edward]', in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (2004, rev. 2013)</ref>  

After an unhappy education at the [[Warwick School|King's School]] in [[Warwick]] (now known as Warwick School), where he was a boarder between 1888 and 1891, he left to board {{HMS|Conway|school ship|6}}, both to train for a life at sea and to break his addiction to reading, of which his aunt thought little. He spent several years aboard this ship, and found that he could spend much of his time reading and writing. It was aboard the ''Conway'' that Masefield's love of story-telling grew. While he was on the ship, he listened to the stories told about sea lore, continued to read, and decided that he was to become a writer and story-teller himself. Masefield gives an account of life aboard the ''Conway'' in his book ''New Chum''.

{{Quote box |width=400px |align=right |quoted=true |salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
{{Poetically break lines|I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.}}

</poem>|source =From "[[s:Sea-Fever|Sea-Fever]]", in ''Salt-Water Ballads'' (1902)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/saltwaterballads00maserich ''Salt-Water Ballads'' (1902) at the Internet Archive]</ref>}}

In 1894 Masefield boarded the ''Gilcruix'', destined for Chile. This first voyage brought him the experience of sea sickness, but his record of his experiences while sailing through extreme weather shows his delight in seeing flying fish, porpoises and birds. He was awed by the beauty of nature, including a rare sighting of a [[lunar rainbow|nocturnal rainbow]], on this voyage. On reaching Chile, he suffered from sunstroke and was hospitalised. He eventually returned home to England as a passenger aboard a steamship. His experiences on the voyage were used as material for his narrative poem ''Dauber'' (1913).<ref name=ondb/>

In 1895 Masefield returned to sea on a [[Iron-hulled sailing ship|windjammer]] destined for New York City. However, the urge to become a writer and the hopelessness of life as a sailor overtook him, and in New York he jumped ship and travelled throughout the countryside. For several months he lived as a vagrant, drifting between odd jobs, before he returned to New York City and found work as a barkeeper's assistant. Some time around Christmas 1895, he read the December edition of ''[[Truth (magazine)|Truth]]'', a New York periodical, which contained the poem "The Piper of Arll" by [[Duncan Campbell Scott]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/confederation/DCScott/labour_and_the_angel.htm#piper |title=The Piper of Arll |access-date=30 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723151738/http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/confederation/DCScott/labour_and_the_angel.htm#piper |archive-date=23 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ten years later, Masefield wrote to Scott to tell him what reading that poem had meant to him:

{{Blockquote|I had never (till that time) cared very much for poetry, but your poem impressed me deeply, and set me on fire. Since then poetry has been the one deep influence in my life, and to my love of poetry I owe all my friends, and the position I now hold.<ref>John Coldwell Adams, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110723151750/http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/confederation/John%20Coldwell%20Adams/Confederation%20Voices/chapter%205.html Duncan Campbell Scott] ", ''Confederation Voices'', Canadian Poetry, 30 March 2011.</ref>}}

{{Quote box |width=350px |align=right |quoted=true |salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
{{Poetically break lines|Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
 
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, ironware, and cheap tin trays.}}

</poem>|source =From "[[s:Cargoes|Cargoes]]", in ''Ballads'' (1903)<ref>[https://archive.org/details/ballads00maserich ''Ballads'' (1903) at the Internet Archive]</ref>}}

From 1895 to 1897, 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. He purchased up to 20 books a week, and devoured both modern and classical literature. His interests at this time were diverse, and his reading included works by [[George du Maurier]], [[Alexandre Dumas]] (père), [[Thomas Browne]], [[William Hazlitt]], [[Charles Dickens]], [[Rudyard Kipling]], and [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]. [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]] also became very important to him during this time, as well as [[John Keats|Keats]] and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]]. In 1897, Masefield returned home to England<ref>Stapleton, M; ''The Cambridge Guide to English Literature'', Cambridge University Press, 1983, p571</ref> as a passenger aboard a steamship.

In 1901, when Masefield was 23, he met his future wife, Constance de la Cherois Crommelin (6 February 1867{{snd}}18 February 1960, from [[Cushendun]] in [[County Antrim]], [[Northern Ireland]]; she was a sister to [[Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin]]), aged 35, and of Huguenot descent. They married on 23 June 1903 at St. Mary, [[Bryanston Square]]. Educated in classics and [[English Literature]], and a mathematics teacher, Constance was a good match for him, despite the difference in their ages.  The couple had two children: Judith, born Isabel Judith, 28 April 1904, in London, died in Sussex, 1 March 1988; and Lewis Crommelin, born in 1910, in London,  killed in action in Africa, 29 May 1942.<ref>[http://ies.sas.ac.uk/cmps/Projects/Masefield/Society/jms2.htm John Masefield Society, A Biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070513040102/http://ies.sas.ac.uk/cmps/Projects/Masefield/Society/jms2.htm |date=13 May 2007 }}</ref>

In 1902 Masefield was put in charge of the fine arts section of the Arts and Industrial Exhibition in Wolverhampton. By then his poems were being published in periodicals and his first collection of verse, ''Salt-Water Ballads'', was published that year. It included the poem "Sea-Fever".  Masefield then wrote two novels, ''Captain Margaret'' (1908) and ''Multitude and Solitude'' (1909).  In 1911, after a long period of writing no poems, he composed ''[[The Everlasting Mercy]]'', the first of his [[Narrative poetry|narrative poems]], and within the next year had produced two more, "The Widow in the Bye Street" and "Dauber".  As a result, he became widely known to the public and was praised by the critics. In 1912 he was awarded the annual Edmond de Polignac Prize.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.publishingcentral.com/masefield/biography.html |title=Self-published Blog on Masefield Biog |access-date=21 March 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423162114/http://www.publishingcentral.com/masefield/biography.html |archive-date=23 April 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[File:JohnMasefield1912.jpg|thumbnail|1912]]