LITERARY BRITAIN
Bill Brandt
[Bill Brandt] Mark Haworth-Booth [Editor], John Hayward [introduction]: LITERARY BRITAIN. New York: Aperture, 1986. First American edition [originally published in a different format by Cassell and Company Limited, London, 1951]. Charcoal cloth stamped in silver. Photo illustrated dust jacket. Unpaginated. 75 full-page black and white plates with facing text. Jacket top and bottom edges lightly worn. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print. A nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket. Rare.
8.25 x 9.75 hardcover book with 75 full-page black and white plates with facing text; an intorduction by John Hayward, and an afterword by Mark Haworth-Booth. The full-page halftone photographs are of sites associated with British authors, including Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Milton, Keats, Hardy, Shaw, Wordsworth, et al. Many show Brandt's ability to impart mood to landscapes, buildings, and interiors, by favoring hazy or threatening skies. A welcome alternative to the usual photographic literary tour by one of England's master photographers.
Acknowledged as a master of twentieth-century photography and the greatest British photographer, Bill Brandt left an indelible mark on the medium during a career that spanned more than fifty years. Trained in Man Ray's Paris studio, Brandt returned to England and produced a body of work that ranged from portraits of upper-crust society to views of the poverty of the industrial north. During the Blitz of World War II Brandt created an epic picture of blacked-out London, with images of bomb-damaged landmarks and residents sheltering in underground subway stations. After the war, he began a series of nude studies using lens distortions and unusual points of view to interpret the female form in new ways. He also photographed the movers and shakers of the English art scene, from Alec Guinness to David Hockney, and, for a series called 'Literary Britain,' he toured the country tracking down landscapes that had been influential to important British writers.