George Mann MacBeth (19 January 1932 – 16 February 1992) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

poet and novelist.

Biography

George MacBeth was born in

Shotts Shotts is a small town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is located almost halfway between Glasgow () and Edinburgh (). The town has a population of about 8,840. A local story has Shotts being named after the legendary giant highwayman Bertra ...

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark (; ), is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland. The county is no l ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. When he was three, his family moved to

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

in England. He was educated in Sheffield at King Edward VII School, where he was Head Prefect in 1951
photo
, before going up to

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

, with an Open Scholarship in Classics. He joined

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

on graduating in 1955 from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. He worked there, as a producer of programmes on poetry, notably for the

BBC Third Programme The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces ...

, until 1976. He was a member of

The Group The Group may refer to: Film and television * ''The Group'' (Australian TV series), 1971 situation comedy produced by Cash Harmon Television for ATN7 * ''The Group'' (Canadian TV series), 1968–70 music variety on CBC Television * ''The Group ...

. He resigned from the BBC to take up novel-writing; he introduced a series of thrillers involving the spy, Cadbury. In his later post-BBC years, after divorcing his first wife, he married the novelist Lisa St Aubin de Terán, with whom he had a child, Alexander Morton George MacBeth. After a divorce, he moved with his new wife, Penny, to Ireland to live at Moyne Park,

Abbeyknockmoy Abbeyknockmoy () is a village and parish in County Galway, Ireland. It is known for the nearby ruins of the 12th century Cistercian abbey, established with the Kings of Connacht as its benefactors. The abbey was the burial site of King Cathal ...

, near Tuam in

County Galway County Galway ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region, taking up the south of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. The county population was 276,451 at the 20 ...

. A few months later, George MacBeth was diagnosed as suffering from

motor neurone disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive loss of both upper and low ...

, of which he died in early 1992. In the last poetry he wrote, MacBeth provides an anatomy of a cruel disease and the destruction it caused two people deeply in love. Penny and George had two children, Diana ("Lally") Francesca Ronchetti MacBeth and George Edward Morton Mann MacBeth. ''Poems from Oby'' (1982) was a Choice of the

Poetry Book Society The Poetry Book Society (PBS) is a British subscription-based book club dedicated to selecting, recommending and publicising new poetry books. Every quarter, it selects two Poetry Book Society Choices and four Poetry Book Society Recommendations. ...

. He wrote the compilation while living at The Old Rectory, Oby;

Oby Oby or OBY can refer to: * Oby (village), a medieval village located in Ashby with Oby, England, UK * Obiageli, a Nigerian feminine given name * Ittoqqortoormiit Heliport, an heliport in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland, by IATA code * Olav Øby ( ...

is a

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

hamlet. He received a

Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize established in 1963 in tribute to Geoffrey Faber, founder and first Chairman of the publisher Faber & Faber. It recognises a single volume of poetry or fiction by a United Kingdom, Iri ...

for his work. MacBeth died in

Tuam Tuam (; , meaning 'mound' or 'burial-place') is a town in Ireland and the second-largest settlement in County Galway. It is west of the midland Region, Ireland, midlands of Ireland, about north of Galway city. The town is in a civil parishe ...

, Ireland.

Works

Poetry *''A Form of Words'' (1954) *''Lecture to the Trainees'' (1962) *''The Broken Places'' (1963) *''A Doomsday Book: Poems and Poem-games'' (1965) *''Missile Commander'' (1965) *''The Calf'' (1965) *''The Twelve Hotels'' (1965) *''The Colour of Blood'' (1967) *''The Screens'' (1967) *''A Death'' (1969) *''A War Quartet'' (1969) *''Night of Stones'' (1969) *''The Burning Cone'' (1970) *''Poems'' (1970) *''The Bamboo Nightingale'' (1970) *''The Hiroshima Dream'' (1970) *''The Snow Leopard'' (1970) *''Two Poems'' (1970) *''A Prayer Against Revenge'' (1971) *''The Orlando Poems'' (1971) *''Collected Poems 1958–1970'' (1972) *''A Farewell'' (1972) *''A Litany'' (1972) *''Lusus: A Verse Lecture'' (1972) *''Shrapnel'' (1972) *''Prayers'' (1973) *''A Poet's Year'' (1973) *''The Vision'' (1973) *''Elegy for the Gas Dowsers'' (1974) *''In the Hours Waiting for Blood to Come'' (1975) *''The Journey to the Island'' (1975) *''Last Night'' (1976) *''Buying a Heart'' (1978) *''The Saddled Man'' (1978) *''Poem for Breathing'' (1979) *''Poems of Love and Death'' (1980) *''Typing a Novel About the War'' (1980) *''Poems from Oby'' (1982) *''The Long Darkness'' (1983) *''The Cleaver Garden'' (1986) * ''Anatomy of Divorce'' (1988) * ''Collected Poems, 1958–1982'' (1989) * ''Trespassing: Poems from Ireland'' (1991) * ''The Patient'' (1992) * ''Selected Poems'' (2002), edited by

Anthony Thwaite Anthony Simon Thwaite OBE (23 June 1930 – 22 April 2021) was an English poet and critic, widely known as the editor of his friend Philip Larkin's collected poems and letters. Early years and education Born in Chester, England, to Yorkshir ...

Novels *''The Transformation'' (1975) *''The Samurai ''(1976), also published as ''Cadbury and the Samurai'' *''The Survivor'' (1977) *''The Seven Witches'' (1978), also published as ''Cadbury and the Seven Witches'' *''The Born Losers'' (1982), also published as ''Cadbury and the Born Losers'' *''The Katana: A Novel Based on the War Diaries of John Beeby'' (1982), also published as ''A Kind of Treason'' *''Anna's Book'' (1983) *''The Lion of Pescara'' (1984) * ''Another Love Story'' (1991) * ''The Testament of Spencer'' (1992) As Editor *''Penguin Book of Sick Verse'' (1963) *''Penguin Modern Poets 6'' (1964) with

Jack Clemo Reginald John Clemo (11 March 1916 – 25 July 1994) was a Cornish poet and writer who was strongly associated both with his native Cornwall and his strong Christian belief. His work was considered to be visionary and inspired by the rugged Cor ...

and

Edward Lucie-Smith John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith (born 27 February 1933), known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is a Jamaican-born English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster. He has been highly prolific in these fields, writing or editing over a hundred ...

*''Penguin Book of Animal Verse'' (1965) *''Poetry 1900 to 1965'' (1967) *''The Penguin Book of Victorian Verse'' (1969) *''The Falling Splendour, Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson'' (1970) *''Free Form Poetry Two'' (1971), with

Bob Cobbing Bob Cobbing (30 July 1920 – 29 September 2002) was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival. Early life Cobbing was born in Enfield. He attended Enfield Grammar School and ...

*''The Book of Cats'' (1976), editor with Martin Booth *''Poetry 1900–75'' (1980), anthology, editor *''Facts and Feelings in the Classroom'' (1983), editor with Martin Booth Books for Children *''Noah's Journey'' (1966) *''Jonah and the Lord'' (1970) *''Noah and the Lord'' (1970) *''The Rectory Mice'' (1982) *''The Story of Daniel'' (1986) Non-Fiction *''My Scotland: Fragments of a State of Mind'' (1973) *''Dizzy's Woman'' (1986) * ''A Child of the War'' (1987) Short Fiction *''Crab Apple Crisis'' (New Worlds, October 1966) Drama *''The Humming Birds: A Monodrama'' (1968)

References

External links

Book Rags
*Materials related to MacBeth can be found in the Turret Books records at the

University of Maryland Libraries The University of Maryland Libraries is the largest university library system in the Washington D.C.–Baltimore area. The system includes eight libraries: six are located on the University of Maryland, College Park, College Park campus, while ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macbeth, George 1932 births 1992 deaths 20th-century Scottish male writers 20th-century Scottish novelists 20th-century Scottish poets Alumni of New College, Oxford People educated at King Edward VII School, Sheffield People from Shotts Scottish male poets Scottish novelists