War Pictures by British Artists. First and Second Series [Complete in Eight Volumes]
- London: Oxford University Press, 1942-43
London: Oxford University Press, 1942-43. First Edition. First printing. Eight uniform 12mo volumes; First Series in plain, heavy card wrappers with affixed printed jackets; Second Series in printed card wrappers as issued; each volume 64pp; chiefly illus. A few stray swirls of binder's glue to endpapers, as is common to these pamphlets, else a uniformly Near Fine set, with minimal toning to spines; covers bright and texts clean and unmarked. All four volumes of Second Series with the ownership signature in ink of E. Mendelson (aka Nathaniel Tarn) dated 1943.
Uncommon complete run of this series of WW2-era chapbooks, reproducing in halftone numerous documentary artworks by prominent British painters and illustrators including Edward Ardizzone, Robert Austin, Barnett Freedman, Eric Ravilious, and others. Each book in the series is on a specific martial theme - Series I includes "War At Sea," "Army," "R.A.F.," and "Blitz;" Series II comprises "Women," "Production," "Soldiers," and "Air Raids." Well-known authors were commissioned to write the Introductions, among these Stephen Spender, Cecil Beaton, Laura Knight, H.E. Bates, etc., together comprising an impressive gathering of talent, all arrayed towards rallying morale on the British home front. These copies from the library of noted poet and translator Nathaniel Tarn (1928-2024), who was an undergraduate at Cambridge (under his given name, Edward Michael Mendelson) during the period the series was being produced.
Uncommon complete run of this series of WW2-era chapbooks, reproducing in halftone numerous documentary artworks by prominent British painters and illustrators including Edward Ardizzone, Robert Austin, Barnett Freedman, Eric Ravilious, and others. Each book in the series is on a specific martial theme - Series I includes "War At Sea," "Army," "R.A.F.," and "Blitz;" Series II comprises "Women," "Production," "Soldiers," and "Air Raids." Well-known authors were commissioned to write the Introductions, among these Stephen Spender, Cecil Beaton, Laura Knight, H.E. Bates, etc., together comprising an impressive gathering of talent, all arrayed towards rallying morale on the British home front. These copies from the library of noted poet and translator Nathaniel Tarn (1928-2024), who was an undergraduate at Cambridge (under his given name, Edward Michael Mendelson) during the period the series was being produced.