SIR JOHN BETJEMAN FIRST EDITIONS AT
ASH RARE BOOKS
43 HURON ROAD
LONDON SW17 8RE
UNITED KINGDOM

London : John Murray, (1937). First edition. An early collection of thirty-three poems – including “Slough”, “Exeter”, “Tea with the Poets”, “Croydon”, and “Tunbridge Wells” – “Produced in impeccable late Victorian style, this slim – nay, svelte – volume celebrates the joys and woes of Suburbia, High, Low, and Broad Balham is here, and Tooting” (Liverpool Daily Post, 18th December 1937).
Foolscap 4to (22cm). [xiv],(46),[iv]pp – including integral endpapers. Illustrations. Original black cloth, blocked and lettered in gilt; all edges gilt; a very good, clean and sound copy in the original McKnight Kauffer dust-jacket – a design in white, blue and black – the jacket lightly worn, slightly marked and a little tanned, with a revised price over-sticker on the front flap, and a single nick to the back panel, but complete and still very good.

£200

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London : John Murray, 1945. First edition. An early collection of twenty-four poems, including “Henley-on-Thames”, “Parliament Hill Fields”, “South London Sketch, 1944”, “May-Day Song for North Oxford”, “In a Bath Teashop”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). vi,54pp. Original red cloth; paper title label ruled and lettered in black on upper cover; covers faintly flecked as usual; mild spotting of edges; endpapers lightly tanned, but a very good copy in a lightly worn and slightly nicked dust-jacket. Contemporary ownership inscription reading simply “Smethurst”.

£125

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London : Collins, 1958. First edition. A county-by-county guide to the best of the parish churches, judged not only for their architecture, but for atmosphere and aesthetic merit. Betjeman contributes a lengthy historical introduction and many of the introductions to the individual counties, as well as writing or co-authoring the sections on Berkshire, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, London, Oxfordshire and Sussex. With a glossary of architectural terms, an index of architects and artists, etc.
Demy 8vo (22cm). 480pp. Sixty-four photo plates by John Piper and others. Plans. Original black buckram, ruled and lettered in gilt; mild tanning of endpapers, but a very good copy in the attractive Clifford and Rosemary Ellis dust-jacket – just very lightly rubbed and slightly spotted on lower panel and flaps, but also very good.

SOLD

London : John Murray, (1960). A handsomely bound reprint of the first collected edition of Betjeman, originally published in 1958. Also contains a number of poems not previously published in book form. Some 120 poems, including most of his most famous, compiled, edited and introduced by the Earl of Birkenhead.
Crown 8vo (184 x 105mm). (xxviii),(280)pp. Bound in a smart contemporary half green morocco, banded and gilt; top edge gilt; just a touch sunned, but otherwise a very good copy.

£125

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London : John Murray, (1966). First edition : one of 100 special numbered copies on handmade paper, bound in white buckram, and signed by Betjeman. A collection of thirty-four new poems, with a verse preface, including “Cornish Cliffs”, “Monody on the Death of a Platonist Bank Clerk”, “The Cockney Amorist”, “Cricket Master”, etc.
Crown 8vo (20cm). x,(82),[iv]pp. Original white buckram, lettered in gilt; top edge gilt; marbled endpapers; a very good copy in the original glassine dust-jacket – the fragile jacket with just a couple of chips.

£400

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London : John Murray, (1974). First edition. Twenty-seven poems from the period 1967-1974, including “The Costa Blanca”, “A Wembley Lad”, “A Mind’s Journey to Diss”, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). 62,[ii]pp. Original yellow cloth, blocked and lettered on spine in gilt; near fine in the original turquoise, white and black dust-jacket – price-clipped and with a faint suggestion of creasing at upper edge, but also very good indeed. Contemporary Christmas gift inscription from Jane and Robert to their father.

£25

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