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John Masefield

English poet and novelist, known for the prominence of seafaring themes in his work. (He went to sea as a boy, but gave it up before he was twenty; according to one account because he was ironically a martyr to seasickness.) Poet Laureate from 1930 to 1967.

His best-known poem is indubitably "Sea-Fever"*, which begins:

I must go 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

As a novelist, he is probably most widely known for his children's fantasy novels, The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights. The Box of Delights was adapted into a six-part TV miniseries.

John Masefield's works provide examples of:

All Just a Dream: One of his best-known novels ends this way.
Flying Broomstick: Used by the witches in The Midnight Folk
The Highwayman: There's one in the backstory of The Midnight Folk
Latin Land: Santa Barbara, briefly mentioned in The Midnight Folk, and shown in more detail in his adult novels Sard Harker, ODTAA, and The Taking of the Gry.
Living Toys: In The Midnight Folk
Pirates: The subject of several of his poems
Public Domain Character: King Arthur and his court make a cameo appearance in The Midnight Folk
Talking Animal: In The Midnight Folk
Tomboy: Maria in The Box of Delights
Two Aliases, One Character: In The Midnight Folk, Kay's governess Sylvia Daisy and the wicked witch Mrs Pouncer are revealed to be one and the same.
Walk The Plank: In "A Ballad of John Silver"
The Wild Hunt