High Street

Product Information

First published in 1938, this classic book introduces the British High Street, only 2000 copies of the original book were printed before the lithographic plates were destroyed in the London Blitz.

Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), artist, designer and wood-engraver, produced his first lithograph in 1936 entitled 'Newhaven Harbour', which was printed by the Curwen Press. Although they are all admired, Ravilious is particularly revered, perhaps because he died at the age of 39, while serving as an official war artist stationed in Iceland. We'll add a further small selection of Eric Ravilious 'High Street' original 1938 lithographs to our online gallery soon.

Although it mainly featured his watercolour landscapes, the highlight for me was seeing a set of lithographs created during the war, showing life and work aboard a submarine. In a substantial and wide-ranging examination of the making of High Street, art historian Dr Alan Powers places the original 1938 book in historical context, giving new and significant insights into its conception, production and publication. Its design is less elegant than other inter-war trade books, including Adrian Bell’s Men and the Fields, illustrated with six full-page lithographs by John Nash, which Pat Gilmour described in 1977 as ‘one of those nine shillings and sixpence bargains that still make one gasp’. As a result he's not quite as well known as his friends and contemporaries Paul Nash and Edward Bawden, but his cult status is rapidly turning into full blown 'major important artist' status. Here you’ll find a growing selection of our art prints for sale – all are available for immediate purchase online.

The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. The specialist, whether selling cheese or stuffed animals, still has an important role to play, and in London particularly whole streets of independent businesses continue to prosper. Meanwhile, concern over loss of distinctiveness in the retail world has given us several recent books, whose authors share Ravilious’s love of the idiosyncratic. M. and Eric Ravilious [Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 - 2 September 1942) was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver.

The logic of this attitude, played out over the subsequent decades, has brought us to a crisis point. Numerous illustrations, mostly in colour, including all the plates from the original edition of the legendary High Street. Here at last, after all this long time, is “High Street” and I send you a copy as a sort of Christmas present . There is about them the suggestion that you are looking in at a series of gay, old-fashioned parties from the matter-of-fact street in the present.

for The story of High Street, after the publisher had observed that the ‘Knife Grinder’ lithograph looked better when printed on the more generously-sized pages of Country Fair (The Country Life Annual, 1938). This is followed by two illustrated essays, "The Making of High Street" and "High Street at Seventy" by Powers and Russell, respectively. All items can be assumed to be in good condition, with any defects being described in our description. illustrated, 4to, dark blue cloth, paper title label mounted on upper cover, silver gilt spine title, paper-covered slipcase.

M. Richards, was eventually published by Noel Carrington, brother of the artist Dora Carrington and editor at Country Life Books.