Stephen Spender

Sir Stephen Spender CBE
Spender in 1933
Born	Stephen Harold Spender (1909-02-28)28 February 1909 Kensington, London, England
Died	16 July 1995(1995-07-16) (aged 86) Westminster, London, England
Occupation	Poet, novelist, essayist
Nationality	United Kingdom
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Spouse	Agnes Maria (Inez) Pearn; Natasha Litvin

Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work. He was appointed the seventeenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the United States Library of Congress in 1965.

Spender was born in Kensington, London, to journalist Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster, a painter and poet. He went first to Hall School in Hampstead and then at thirteen to Gresham's School, Holt and later Charlecote School in Worthing, but was unhappy there. On the death of his mother he was transferred to University College School (Hampstead), which he later described as "that gentlest of schools." Spender left for Nantes and Lausanne and subsequently went up to University College, Oxford (much later, in 1973, he was made an honorary fellow). Spender said at various times throughout his life that he never passed an exam, ever. Perhaps his closest friend and the man who had the biggest influence on him was W. H. Auden, who introduced him to Christopher Isherwood. The earliest version of Poems written by Auden was hand-printed by Spender. He left Oxford without taking a degree and in 1929 he moved to Hamburg. Isherwood invited him to come to Berlin. Every six months Spender went back to England.