Summoned by Bells

Summoned by Bells, the blank verse autobiography by John Betjeman, describes his life from his early memories of a middle-class home in Edwardian Hampstead, London, to his premature departure from Magdalen College, Oxford.

The book was first published in November 1960 by Betjeman's London publishers, John Murray, and was read by the author, chapter by chapter, in a series of radio broadcasts on the Third Programme (later to become Radio Three) of the BBC. A later, illustrated edition with line and water colour illustrations by Hugh Casson was published in 1989 by Murray (). A paperback edition appeared in 2001.

There is also a BBC film version directed by Jonathan Stedall for television in 1976. In an autobiography covering the life of Betjeman before he started his first job, narrated in blank verse by him, Betjeman visits places that played an important part in his early life.

and, socially and geographically, down

In 1962 Betjeman released an abridged version of the book for children, with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone.

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