The Illustrated Summoned By Bells

London England: John Murray. Near Fine/Very Good. 1989. First Edition. Cloth. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall 0719546966 Harback HardbackPaintings and Sketches by Hugh Casson .This verse autobiography relates the story of the author's younger days set against the places and buildings that were significant in his youth - Highgate, Cornwall, Chelsea, Marlborough, Oxford quads, churches and railway stations. John Betjeman's personal and intimate poems have always held the promise of a more sustained autobiography. Summoned By Bells is this autobiography and it is, as one hoped, in verse - the clear, accomplished, captivating, unabashedly musical verse which has made his Collected Poems a bestseller.As a narrative it is the touching story of a boy's growth to early manhood - a receptive boy's reaction to Edwardian middle-class life and social occasions, seaside vacations, the excitement of visits to the family factory which culminated in a crucial and agonising decision to break with family tradition, the typical gaucheries of the public school, the striking and unexpected moment of religious awakening, and Oxford, in a series of sparkling character sketches of the great and near great. All the familiar background are here - Highgate, Cornwall, Marlborough, Oxford - all laced with the changing colours of the rich thread of experience that provides an ever expanding context. Illustrations. 143pp pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.) .