History Under Fire

Photographs by Cecil Beaton. With commentary by James Pope-Hennessy.

B. T. Batsford Ltd. London. May 1941. First edition. Hardback, large octavo; red cloth-bound boards, with gilt title to spine, dust jacket. viii, 117 pages. 52 black-and-white photographs. English. 230 x 175mm. 0.55kg. . Very good, in good dust jacket; some shelf wear to jacket, some wear to spine ends and forecorners with slight loss, occasional short tear, toning to spines; spotting to edges, some light spotting to endpapers, stamp for P. Munro in Nanyuki, Kenya to front pastedown; newspaper clippings on damaged buildings loosely inserted.

Beaton spent the first two years of the war in England, dividing his time between Ashcombe and Pelham Place, and working on various assignments. He took to exploring the streets of London during the Blitz, photographing the wreckage caused by the German bombs. The writer and historian James Pope-Hennessy was engaged in a similar activity, surveying the destruction of the capital and its historical buildings. The two came together to produce History Under Fire, with Pope-Hennessy providing the text and Beaton the images. The sub-title of the book reads ’52 Photographs of Air Raid Damage to London Buildings, 1940-41’. The book was published in May 1941, the final month of the Blitz, and is an important contemporary account of London's wartime experiences.