BETJEMAN (John).
Uncollected Poems. With a Foreword by Bevis Hillier.
One of 100 numbered copies, signed (very shakily) by Betjeman, this one marked ‘out of sequence’ and with a loosely inserted note from John Murray on the publisher’s headed notepaper. Bevis Hillier’s foreword quotes Larkin’s view of the author: “… he was not, and never has been a cosmopolitan. This is true. ‘Isn’t abroad awful!’ Betjeman once said to Edward James; and Sir Osbert Lancaster told me, ‘When John is abroad, he has to be surrounded by friends, like a rugby-football player who has lost his shorts’”. A fine copy in matching slipcase.
