Betjeman, John
Ghastly good taste or a depressing story of the rise and fall of English architecture.
London, Chapman & Hall 1970.
Full Description
8vo. xxviii + (4) + 136 + (4)pp, with long folding illustration and errata slip. Original pink printed boards, cloth spine, in dustwrapper. Front free endpaper creased. Brian Housden’s copy
The 1970 reissue of Betjeman’s most considered contribution to the literature of architecture, first published in 1933. The sprightliness of his prose style still appeals over sixty years later, and many, although not all, of his judgments are as valid today as then. It is curious to note that the country house of his first chapter is evidently on the outskirts of the Gloucestershire town of Tetbury, not far either in distance or in the imagination from that occupied today by the Prince of Wales. With an expanded introduction by Betjeman.