High Street.
London, Curwen Press for Country Life Ltd., 1938
Although not a limited edition, only about 2000 copies were ever printed as all the lithographic plates were destroyed during the Blitz. In 2008 the Mainstone Press published a history of the project, The Story of High Street which set out to locate and identify the whereabouts of Eric Ravilious' twenty-four businesses and shop fronts, most of which were actually located in London, with the Grill Room and Restaurant yet to be identified.
A note on the transmatic dust jacket: the 1930s had seen a series of developments in the technology of plastics, and the production of cellophane had been one. From about 1934 some publishers in the UK had experimented with the material as dust jackets over decorated boards. Chatto & Windus produced two Faulkner titles (Absalom, Absalom and The Unvanquished), for example. The fad lasted a handful of years only mostly due to the fragile nature of these jackets. They barely survived long enough on the shelves of the bookshops.
First edition, sole impression; 8vo; 24 colour lithograph plates and plain wood-engraved title vignette by Eric Ravilious; publisher's pictorial boards, with the 'transmatic' dust jacket and printed card flaps, a superb copy in the rare cellophane dust-jacket with printed paper flaps, cellophane shrunk as usual with front flap separated, nevertheless a stunning copy of a vulnerable book.
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