You Can Be Sure of Shell

Throughout much of the twentieth century (and indeed before then) publishers competed in producing books on the English counties, not just general guide books, but books setting out the literary and historical background to the county.



Macmillan led the way with their "Highways and Byways" series; sturdy octavo volumes written by well known literary figures, such as Edward Hutton and E V Lucas and illustrated by eminent artists such as Joseph Pennell and F L Griggs.



This series began with "Highways and Byways in Devon and Cornwall" in 1897 and came to an end with "Highways and Byways in the Welsh Marches" in 1935. Not all counties were published, notable omissions being Lancashire and Cheshire and the series also covered regions of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Normandy, a total of 37 volumes being produced. These volumes are attractive and do provide a detailed review, being particularly strong on history and literature.



Next up we have Hodder and Stoughton's "King's England" series. This began life in the 1930's and was resurrected in various forms once all the English counties had been completed in the original red cloth, blue dustwrapper, format in 1952 with "Northumberland", the 41st volume in the series. These were edited by Arthur Mee, but used other authors in building up descriptions of each village, town and city in alphabetical order illustrated by brown and white photographs. The descriptions are gloriously positive as even the most unprepossessing of villages is found to be blessed with a wonderful church font, a magnificent oak tree or a remarkable grave.

Passing over Robert Hale's "County" books and Pevsner's "Buildings of England" series, we come to the gold standard for county guides - the Shell Guides published initially by the Architectural Press, briefly by Batsford but reaching their glorious best when Faber and Faber took over the series.



The Shell Guides, which were published over the period 1934 to 1984, were aimed at motorists touring their own country. With a mixture of essays on the county, a gazeteer and carefully chosen photographs they complemented perfectly the ordnance survey map on a motoring holiday. In fact, so good are they that it would be highly unusual for my wife and I to spend any length of time in an area of Britain new to us without packing the appropriate Shell Guide.



The initiative for the series belongs to John Betjeman, at that time working for the "Architectural Review". Betjeman sought sponshorship for a series of guide books from Shell, who were suitably enthusiatic, the idea complementing their own brand of advertising.











The first guide "Cornwall", written by Betjeman himself, duly appeared in 1934 published by the Architectural Press. Further volumes from this Press on Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Kent, Somerset and Wiltshire followed over the next few years.











"Devon" was authored by Betjeman, the others by different authors commissioned by Betjeman, including Paul Nash, the artist, whose "Dorset" contains a mixture of photographs and Nash's own drawings, making it particularly attractive.







These volumes are all spiral bound with relatively short gazetteers, and separate essays on various aspects of the county, such as geology, architecture, natural history and antiquities. Gazetteer entries are often short and not always complimentary. This sort of critical appraisal continued to be a great strength of the series, as authors heaped scorn on recent architectural developments in some towns and cities. In particular, James Lees-Milne in his "Worcestershire" is in fine form in his condemnation of the damage visited on Worcester by insensitive development and would have been even more vitriolic if the publishers had not objected. The point for Shell after all was to encourage people to travel to places, not put them off. In retrospect, it is surprising how much licence was given to the authors.







Batsford took over the publishing of the guides in 1937 and were responsible for "Hampshire", "Northumberland and Durham", "The West Coast of Scotland" and "Oxon" (1938). This latter guide was written by the artist John Piper, supported by his wife Myfanwy Evans and this volume again broke new ground in its use of images and incorporation of cartoons by Osbert Lancaster.











Piper and Betjeman had become friends in the mid 1930's and their joint involvement with the Guides from 1938 to 1964 (when Betjeman resigned) ensured that the guides would continue at a high standard. Piper remained as editor until the series closed in 1984.

In 1939 Faber and Faber took over the series and as well as re-issuing several of the earlier guides produced their first original guide, "Gloucestershire", in 1939, the last guide issued before the Second World War. It would be 1951 before the next guide "Shropshire" was issued, fittingly enough jointly authored by Betjeman and Piper.



By now the spiral binding had been replaced with conventionally bound boards and the gazetteer expanded to occupy the great majority of the text.

During the next 33 years many of the original county guides were revamped and re-issued sometimes by the original author, more often by new authors and the guides became thicker as the gazetteers expanded and entries became longer.







In addition, new counties were added, culminating in "Nottinghamshire" by Henry Thorold in 1984, the last guide issued.



In addition to "Nottinghamshire" Thorold produced guides to Durham, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire, all detailed inventories of all that is good in the county. Other notable authors were Norman Scarfe, author of "Cambridgeshire", "Essex" and "Suffolk" and W G Hoskins, author of the superb "Rutland".







The first holiday my wife and I took with a Shell Guide was in 1968, when we paid a brief visit to Dorset, taking Michael Pitt-Rivers' 1966 guide. This was our companion at sites that have since become very special, such as Durdle Door, Gold Hill at Shaftesbury and Maiden Castle.



Holidays in Pembrokeshire were considerably enhanced as Vivyan Rees's "South West Wales" took us to lonely villages nestling in the shadow of the Prescelly Mountains or to forgotten standing stones on lonely Pembrokeshire trackways. I could go on; we have since spent weeks in, for example, Cornwall, Northumberland, Norfolk and Devon, always with the Shell Guide at hand.

As they have become even more appreciated for their sheer excellence, and since they more and more tell of an England that is disappearing, the Shell Guides have now become collectable and are becoming expensive. This is a pity because their best place is at your side in the car, which is exactly what John Betjeman, soon to be poet laureate, had in mind when he went into business with that unlikeliest of partners - a multi-national oil company.







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Felix Kelly: Visions of Haunted Houses

One of the joys of book-collecting is that new categories emerge within the collection without any initial intent to create that category. Surreptitiously, a new group of related books appears and initiates a new interest.

So it was with Felix Kelly, at first just a name identifying him as the illustrator of the dust jacket of Faber and Faber's "Best Horror Stories" (1957). I first encountered this volume in its year of publication and, with its suitably ghostly picture of a wraith-like figure with a skeleton in its arms outside a deserted house, it immediately puts you in the world of M R James.

Some time later two more Felix Kelly dust jackets turned up, again in Faber and Faber's series of "Best of ..." collections. These were "Best Tales of Terror" (1962) and "Best Detective Stories" (1959), both edited by Edmund Crispin and again both suitably menacing with threatening figures appearing out of the dark.

Perhaps, though, the definitive Felix Kelly ghostly image is that making up the wrap-around dust jacket of Joseph Braddock's "Haunted Houses", (Batsford 1956). Here, trade-mark wraiths glide between gothic mansions in a landscape of tombstones and bare trees. Particularly effective is how the title of the book is placed on a white shroud (?) hanging over the scene.

Two more dust jackets complete this collection, both published by Home and Van Thal. That of Rhoda Broughton's "Twilight Stories" (1947) is set within an architectural drawing of a decaying window and has the usual leafless tree and gravestones as backdrop to the solitary figure.

"A Strange Adventure in the Life of Miss Laura Mildmay" (J Sheridan Le Fanu, 1947) again features gravestones, towards which a female figure is falling as ominous black birds approach out of a lurid sky.

Felix Kelly (1914-1994) was a New Zealander, born in Auckland, who came to live permanently in England from 1935, serving as a fighter pilot in World War II. He is often compared with Rex Whistler and, like Whistler, made something of a speciality of decorating country houses with murals, often depicting imagined romantic landscapes replete with ruins in the manor of Claude. In pursuit of this career he was friendly with many aristocratic families, in the eighties working for Prince Charles at Highgrove.

Perhaps his most famous murals are those in the Garden Hall at Castle Howard, which he painted for Granada TV, under the patronage of the Howard family, for "Brideshead Revisited". It is these murals, depicting imagined Vanbrugh buildings, with features from Castle Howard, that Jeremy Irons, in the character of Charles Ryder, is seen painting in the series. Indeed there are so many parallels between the career of Kelly and the fictional Ryder, that the former's character may well have been used by Evelyn Waugh as the model for Charles Ryder.

The actors Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews are seen in the Garden Hall below:

A Kelly painting of the station at Castle Howard, painted for the Howard family:

As an artist, Kelly incorporates surrealist elements, but is chiefly associated with the Neo-Romantics. Some other typical works:

Kelly's childhood remembered in this surreal image of Takapuna Beach, near Auckland:

Mural for the Banqueting Hall, the Royal Palace, Kathmundu, Nepal:

Disturbing image with Kelly-esque woman in a black cloak:

A monograph on Kelly (known to friends as "Fix")was published in 2007 by Donald Bassett, an art historian at the University of Auckland, accompanying an exhibition (A Kiwi at Brideshead) of his work.

Felix Kelly illustrated many books, some with superb dust jacket designs, but, for me, it will always be his haunted houses decorating the dust jackets of some of my favourite books that retain their hold on my imagination.

High Barn Books - Stella reports on the first ten years

It could have been the 14th, or possibly 15th September 2001 when we first thought of it. We know now to call this ‘post 9/11 Britain’ and although the shocking twin towers collapse seemed to have nothing to do with the conception of High Barn Books, maybe we were in a way ready for something new.

We had gone to York Book Fair and picked up some books we had bought from a local bookseller. Being heavy and expensive to post it seemed sensible to go and get them while we were so close. We ended up at the house of Jeffrey Stern - quite a stunning property in itself, but even more so given the books inside - and the books outside in his substantial outhouses. Jeffrey had a radical idea. He thought we should become booksellers.


Actually this wasn’t so radical. I don’t think that any of our friends at the time would have thought it at all strange that we should go into the business. We had been collecting books since we were married in 1970 and one look at any room in our house would show that it had grown from a collection to, well, a BIG collection.


I don’t say it’s an obsession as that somehow implies piles of books in corners of every room. We have made an effort to keep the size of our book collection down to the size of the place we live - which means we either have to limit our book collection or keep buying somewhere bigger. No prizes for guessing which we did. But then suddenly it became obvious that some books we had begun to collect weren’t as interesting as they used to be. And we had new interests, new collections to build up. When Jeffrey suggested becoming sellers it immediately became apparent to us that we had some books to sell already. He thought about 300 books was enough to start selling and we felt that we had that many we could pull out of our own collection without missing them too much.


So then we had the drive home. Could we do it? Yes. What should we call it? Rabbit Lane Books? Gressingham Books? Stelandjohn’s Book Emporium? But of course High Barn Books was the one and only name in the end. 3 strong monosyllables standing firm like a solid 19th century 3-decker novel and a bit of alliteration into the bargain. We already had a company and we weren’t too sure if we could slot High Barn Books under the same umbrella. As soon as we got home we searched the internet to see if there was another High Barn Books. Assuming that the High Barn B and B in Sussex, and High Barn recording studios in Essex wouldn’t even notice, we felt confident that we had the only High Barn Bookstore in the world. And a call to our accountant on Monday morning confirmed that we could have one company that sold second hand books and were nuclear safety consultants.


Next thing was to sort out some books and catalogue them. There seemed many frightening things to tackle about starting up a new business from scratch - not least the technology of putting things up on the internet rather than downloading them from it. I had a fair amount of knowledge of databases and so we could hash something together that way, and to my amazement I could upload to abebooks using the software we already had.


But describing books seemed to be the most frightening of all. Terrified of doing something wrongly, my first attempts consisted of cutting and pasting other booksellers’ descriptions and then changing them slightly so that they sounded like the book we were trying to sell. After a few days of this I cautiously wrote my own. Now nearly 30000 books later I can’t quite remember what I was so nervous about.


Meanwhile, on the financial front, John was busy buying nice new account books and arranging for new bank accounts in the name of High Barn Books. We had the target of getting the business going by 1st January 2002 - a 3 month margin to sort out all the ins and outs of our new venture, but we achieved our first upload to Abebooks on 25th October 2001. But of course our most important milestone was that first book sale, ‘The Legacy of England’ (Batsford) to the memorably-named Vince Prank.


By the following May we had 1000 books online and had sold nearly 200 books and so the business grew. We picked up books along the way from charity sales, library sales, and through friends we bought collections of unwanted books, mostly locally, though some further away. Some we could put into the boot of the car, and for some we hired a decent sized van. Somehow it just grew.


Problems of shelving our stock were relieved from time to time by bits of shelving acquired here and there over time and this entailed finding tiny bits of free wall space to put them. Now we think we have as much shelving as the house can stand, but there are also books in the garage and some in boxes. But by and large our current stock of nearly 6000 books is about the maximum we can manage here alongside our own collection and the business ticks over well at that level.


In 2001 bookselling on the internet wasn’t new - but it was, compared to now, in relative infancy. Bookselling, unlike most remote selling, lends itself perfectly to the internet. Book buyers have long been able to translate the arcane language of booksellers. Such fragments as cold. ill. or a.e.g, are easily translatable (coloured illustrations, all edges gilt) to your average bookbuyer as booksellers have been using these for years in catalogues.


Bookbuyers don’t just peer at dusty bookshelves in dustier bookshops, spectacles raised to their eyebrows, tattered sports jackets with leather elbow patches, their sit-up-and-beg bikes with wicker baskets poised to take flight with brown paper covered packages perfectly tied up with string. Sometimes they sit by their fires, pipes in hand eagerly perusing book catalogues, phones poised to ring up the bookseller to catch their latest ‘find’. So once the internet became available more widely, it was almost inevitable that some bright spark would put books up there.

Amazon, early on the scene, appeared to the internet all guns blazing to sell new books in 1995 and more discreetly, the Advanced Book Exchange in 1996. Advanced Book Exchange had the idea of matching sellers of unwanted books to buyers who wanted them. Little is left of that idea, though buyers who are looking for particular volumes can add a want and both buyers and sellers get lists of matches. But times change and Advanced Book Exchange turned into a worldwide market place and became Abebooks - with some uncertainly as to whether it should be A-B-E books or Abe as some brother of Cain who has wondered into the book of lost consonants. By 2001 Abebooks was still king of the second hand bookselling business and although they charged commission, they felt that the link between seller and buyer was paramount. It may be only 10 years later, but there have been some dramatic changes since then.


But High Barn Books keeps on going - soon to be in its second decade. We have had our own website for many years, and our packing is second to none. Our average sales are slightly above average and we enjoy what we do. The ebook may be threatening, louring above all booksellers, but we are positive. The look, feel, touch, smell of a real book will never be a phase that will pass.


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