Julian Bell, Essays, Poems and Letters

1938, a collection of works of Julian Bell, son of Clive and Vanessa Bell, killed in the Spanish Civil War

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

First edition, first printing. Hardback, bound in the original green cloth with gilt titling to spine. 22 × 14cm, xi + 396pp.

Julian Bell (1908–1937) was the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell, the brother of Quentin Bell and the nephew of Virginia Woolf. After Oxford, he travelled and wrote poetry, and being a pacifist edited We Did Not Fight, an anthology of memoirs of conscientious objectors in the Great War. He became increasingly drawn to the anti-fascist and socialist movements in the Spanish Civil War and wanted to enlist. Both Virginia Woolf and his mother, Vanessa Bell, persuaded him not to enlist in the fighting ranks and instead he drove an ambulance for the British Medical Unit attached to the International Brigades. He was killed at the Battle of Brunete in 1937 aged 29.

This book collects his letters and selected poems, with the second part of the book formed of longer essays, being 1, On Roger Fry, A Letter, 2. The Proletariat and Poetry: An Open Letter to C Day Lewis, 3. A Reply by C Day Lewis, 4. War and Peace: Letter to E M Forster, and 5. Notes for a Reply, by E M Forster.

Condition

An increasingly rare book on a younger member of the Bloomsbury circle, with just 1200 copies being printed. This copy is in good condition. There is some light marking and scuffing to the spine, and very light fraying to the joints. Scattered foxing to the title page, a little to the page edges and reappearing towards the end of the book but majority of the pages are clean. The inner binding is secure. One neat previous owner's name to the ffep, and the book remaining in good, strong readable condition.