Oxon. Shell Guide

John Piper.

Batsford. London. [1938.] First edition. Cloth edition. Hardback; yellow cloth-bound boards, titles in red, dust jacket. 47 pages. Illustrated endpapers, many b&w photos and sketches, colour map. English. 230 x 185mm. 0.4kg. . Near fine, in very good dust jacket; slight shelf wear to forecorners and spine ends, neat small tape repair to verso of head of spine, light spotting to verso of jacket, slight marks to surface of white jacket; boards and pages clean and fresh.

A very well-preserved first edition copy of Oxon, written and illustrated by John Piper. Oxon was the first of the Shell guides that John Piper worked on. He and his wife, Myfanwy Evans, had recently purchased a run-down farmhouse in Fawley Bottom, Oxfordshire. During 1937 and '38 the pair toured the Oxfordshire countryside collecting material for the guide. As well as providing the text, Piper took the majority of the photographs in the guide himself, with the remainder being mostly taken by Maurice Beck. The guide includes an essay on 'Deserted Places' by Evans, the gazetteer, an article on 'Monuments' by K. A. Esdaile, and a list of 29 notable Oxfordshire locals. Oxon does not include details of Oxford city as this was being covered by John Betjeman in An Oxford University Chest published in the same year. The Pipers focussed on the rural and the domestic, and the guide's aims and Cotswoldian interests remain relevant.
 
[Heathcote, David. A Shell Eye on England. P.56-63]