Blakeston Osbert (3 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 386 pages. Illustrated. Stephen Spender "Politics And Literature In 1933" / Hugh Walpole "Some Books I Have Enjoyed In 1933" / Osbert Burdett "Of Good Fruit - And Other Books" / Edwin Muir "Three Important Books" / Mary Butts "Magic Of Person And Place" / Francis Watson "Biographies And Some Shorter Works" / The Political Outlook In 1933 / Patrick Donner "From The Conservative Angle" / Seaborne Davies "The Liberal Party During 1933" / Oliver Baldwin "What Labour Has Achieved" Collin Brooks "The Economic Implications Of 1933" / Vernon Bartlett "Peace Round The Corner" / C P Snow "Science Of The Year" / Norman Marshall "The Theatre In 1933" / Some Stage Sets Of 1933 - illustrated / Oswell Blakeston "The Cinema In 1933" / Basil Maine "Music In England" / Frank Rutter "Art Criticism Of The Year" / Rev. R Birch Hoyle " (SL#273).

LIMITED EDITION, no. 96/ 350. Slim crown 8vo, pp. [88] + frontispiece by Cecil Wray and illustration by Frederick Carter. Yellow buckram, spine lettered in silver, silver-stamped crescent moon to upper board. Top edge silver, leading edge untrimmed. Grubby boards (patchily so cleaning attempted?), dusty edges. Frontispiece loose, else, internally clean and tidy. Jisc LHD lists five legal deposit libraries (excepting NLS), plus St. Andrews and Senate House Library, as holding complete runs. Good+ A solid copy of the second issue of the limited edition (no. 96/ 350) of K. S. Bhat's fascinating, but short-lived interwar literary magazine, featuring contributions by Oswell Blakeston, the Czech Symbolist poet Otoka B ezina in translation via Paul Selver, Rhys Davies, John Galsworth, Laurence and T. F. Powys, plus Geoffrey West and the communist activist and first British MP (for Labour) of Indian Parsi heritage, Shapurji Saklatvala. "Sensitive people shudder when books are confused with magazines; but Dr. Bhat produced a highbrow magazine that practically was a book": so began the ever playful Oswell Blakeston in his tart retrospective of the interwar oddity, Soma, 30 years on (Blakeston, 1964). According to Blakeston, the very little-known K. S. Bhat was a socially- and literary-minded Indian doctor who practised in an impoverished area of London, often providing his services for free. While based in the UK, Bhat had "decided to send to India some of the creative work he liked best in the English literary scene," hence the robust bindings to facilitate safe travel to the subcontinent. Publication of Soma ceased in 1935, after five issues, when, as planned, the medically up-skilled Bhat returned to India himself.

Condition: Very Good. First edition in publisher's original illustrated card wrap covers (soft back). Slim 8vo. 7¼'' x 5''. With monochrome illustrations and photographs throughout. In Very Good condition, no dust wrapper as issued. Member of the P.B.F.A. MODERN FIRST EDITIONS.