Background
SPENDER, Stephen was born on February 28, 1909. Son of Edward and Violet (née Shuster) Spender.
SPENDER, Stephen was born on February 28, 1909. Son of Edward and Violet (née Shuster) Spender.
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."
Counsellor, Section of Letters UNESCO 1947. Co-editor Encounter 1953-1966, Correspondent. Lecturer, Washington 1965, Northcliffe Lecturer, London 1969.
Professor, of English, University College, London 1970-1977, Professor Emeritus since 1977. President English PEN Centre since 1975. Honorary; Judge 1937, The Still Centre 1939, translated Ernst Toller’s Pastor Hall 1939, The Backward Son 1940, Ruins and Visions 1942, Life and the Poet 1942, Citizens in War and After 1944, European Witness 1946, Poems of Dedication 1946, The Edge of Being 1949, World Within World (autobiog.) 1951, The Creative Element 1953, Collected Poems 1955, Engaged in Writing 1957.
Translation of Schiller’s Maria Stuart 1959. The Struggle for the Modem 1962, Selected Poems 1964, The Year of the Young Rebels 1969, The Concise Encyclopedia of English and American Poets and.
He felt close to the Jewish people; his mother, Violet Hilda Schuster, was half Jewish (her father's family were German Jews who converted to Christianity, while her mother came from an upper-class family of Catholic German, Lutheran Danish and distantly Italian descent). Spender's second wife, Natasha, whom he married in 1941, was also Jewish.
Spender's political opinions were radically liberal
Married 1st Agnes Marie Inez in 1936. Married 2nd Natasha Litvin 1941, one son one daughter.