The Story of High Street

Eric Ravilious; RICHARDS, J.M.

ISBN 10: 0955277728 / ISBN 13: 9780955277726

Published by The Mainstone Press, 2008

About this Item

RAVILIOUS, Eric (Illus.); RICHARDS, J.M. (Text). The Story of High Street. Sparham: The Mainstone Press, 2008. Limited edition of 750 copies, a handsome production to mark the 70th anniversary of the original edition of High Street, first published in 1938 by Country Life Books. Conceived as a children's book of shops, it features 24 lithographs by Eric Ravilious depicting a variety of wonderful local shops of the pre-war era - cheesemongers, oyster bars, wedding cakes, letter makers, theatrical properties, model ships and railways, submarine engineers, fireworks, amusement arcades, and more. High Street is one of the most famous and beloved English illustrated books of the twentieth century. Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) was a painter, illustrator, lithographer, wood-engraver, and designer, who is now regarded as one of the finest English artists of the twentieth-century. Ravilious served as a war artist and was killed on a search and rescue flight from Iceland in September 1942. This edition is a reprint of the original edition, including reproductions of all 24 plates from the first issue. It also includes two major essays and an eclectic range of illustrations and preparatory drawings. In the first essay, The Making of High Street , art historian Alan Powers places the book in historical context, providing illuminating insights into its conception, production and publication. The second essay, High Street at Seventy by James Russell, describes the quest to identify and locate each of the shops depicted by Ravilious. 4to, original blue cloth, colour label to front board (reproducing Ravilious s watercolour sketch of the Submarine Shop ). 280pp, col plates+ text illustrations. Fine copy in original slipcase (also fine). ISBN: 9780955277726.

Seller Inventory # ABE-1718637060984

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Story of High Street
• Publisher: The Mainstone Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0955277728
• ISBN 13: 9780955277726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Fine
• Weight: 1.2 kilograms

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

FOREWORD This is a book of pictures of different kinds of shops. All the pictures are of real shops, though they are not in fact all in the same street. Most of them are in London, but except for those of a very specialized kind--such as the shop that sells fire-engines and the one that sells diving suits--you could find shops like these in almost any big enough town. One or two, like the saddler and harness maker, you would look for in country towns because their business belongs there.