The English at Home by Bill Brandt, First Edition

The English at Home by Bill Brandt

First Edition, First Printing, 1936

This is a scarce first edition, first printing of the classic photobook, “The English at Home” published by B.T. Batsford, Ltd., London in 1936. “The English at Home” was Brandt's first published collection of photographs and provides a unique insight into the extremes of British society between the wars. In the mid-1930s such photo-journalism was very rare and the unsettling social questions raised by Brandt's photographs rarely discussed. Although not initially well-received and quickly remaindered, “The English at Home” is now seen as a rare example of artistic photojournalism. Brandt favored pre-arranged to candid pictures, giving his work a cinematic and often surreal quality. Commenting in “The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century”, David Levi Strauss wrote, “'The English At Home' may look like a fairly conventional self-congratulatory celebration of 'the English'...[but] as the book proceeds, the strictly divided class structure of England is increasingly reflected in the layout, with an image of a desolate street...juxtaposed with children in fine clothes looking bored...and a group of upper-class Brits in top hats and tails at the races contrasted with a mother and her three children in a dirty, cramped room in a village of East Durham in Northern England.” Brandt became a regular contributor to Picture Post and Harper's Bazaar and was famously commissioned by the Ministry of Information to photograph life in the London Underground bomb shelters during the Blitz. His uncompromising style and eye for detail made Brandt one of Britain's most influential and internationally admired photographers of the 20th century his work influencing Robert Frank among others.

Containing 63 gravure plates and measuring approximately 9” x 7.5”, the book is bound in photographically illustrated laminated boards and has photographic endpapers, each being a double page image. The book is in Near Fine condition with sunning to the spine and a rub to the bottom left corner of the upper board without the glassine dust jacket as issued.  Overall, this is an excellent copy of a notoriously fragile and highly sought after ground breaking photobook rarely found in this condition.

Cited in all three reference books on photobooks: “The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century” by Andrew Roth and “The Photobook: A History”, by Parr and Badger, and “The Open Book” by Andrew Roth.

Photographs of the book as well as photographs contained in the book appear below. Please note that although the photographs appear digitized as thumbnails, they are viewable in the photo viewer by running your mouse over the thumbnail. You can also click on the thumbnail to open a separate window where the picture is viewable.