Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$6.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition in VG condition, full blue cloth with gilt, octavo, sunned covers and spine, 32 pages.
Seller: J. King, Bookseller,, Garden Bay, BC, Canada
ELIOT, T.S.. What is a Classic. Faber and Faber, London, 1945.
Price: US$10.19 + shipping
Description: 32pp owner name fep.
Seller: valley books, Holton, SUFFO, United Kingdom
Price: US$12.11 + shipping
Description: First edition (hardback). 8vo (22cm by 14cm), 32pp. Library binding of red cloth, gilt titling to the spine. This book was formerly in a reference library, with occasional stamps and labels; overall, this book is in good to very good condition.
Seller: Cornell Books Limited, Tewkesbury, United Kingdom
Price: US$13.18 + shipping
Description: 8°, 32 pp, publisher's blue cloth, front inner hinge loose. Printed by MacLehose and Company. Ex library copy. A clean copy.
Seller: Meiwes, Stuttgart, Germany
Price: US$16.50 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: True first British printing. No jacket. Blue boards with gold lettering to spine are good with a few marks, minor pushing to corners, patchy fading (including to spine), the odd minor bump/rub to edges and a little pushing/rubbing to head/tail of spine. Pages are generally clean and the binding is tight. Small chip to lower corner of one page (not through text). Previous owner's name and date in pen to front end-paper. Top of pages slightly dusty. Odd spot of foxing to end-papers. No other faults. All books described honestly and accurately. Paypal accepted.
Seller: PW Books, Andover, HANTS, United Kingdom
Price: US$22.93 + shipping
Description: Large 8vo. With jacket. 32 pp. Light inscr. to front pastedown, else book and jacket clean and sound. VG+ / VG Essays
Seller: Wheeler's Bookshop, Midhurst, West Sussex, United Kingdom
Price: US$27.45 + shipping
Description: Fine cloth copy in a good if somewhat edge-nicked and dust-dulled dw, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 255 pages; Physical description: 255 p ; 23 cm. Subjects: Church and social problems - Anglican authors. Contents: I. Foundations: The hope of Christendom authentic, by F. N. Davey. The idea of a natural order, by V. A. Demant. The person and the family, by E. L. Mascall. Cultural forces in the human order, by T. S. Eliot. A civilization of technics, by Philip Mairet. Catholic sociology and the English situation, by M. B. Reckitt. --II. Vocation and ministry: Nature and rural man, by Patrick Mclaughlin. Man at work, by T. M. Heron. The town in to-morrow's Christendom, by Ruth Kenyon. The function of finance, by D. G. Peck. --III. Recovery in politics: The validity of politics, by W. G. Peck. The meaning of a nation, by Charles Smyth. The scope and limits of state initiative, by Ruth Kenyon. Nations as neighbours, By C. E. Hudson. --IV. The task before us: The forces against us, by Henry Balmforth. What we may count upon, by Rosalinde Wilton. Epilogue, by P. E. T. Widdrington. 1 Kg.
Seller: MW Books Ltd., Galway, Ireland
Price: US$31.00 + shipping
Description: 8vo, pp. 32. [Gallup A45.b, (trade issue)] Quote written in pencil on flyleaf, cover little faded, o/w VG.
Seller: Second Life Books, Inc., Lanesborough, MA, U.S.A.
Price: US$31.85 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First Edition. Hardback. 8vo, pp 255. Original publisher's blue cloth lettered gilt at the spine. Subjects: Church and social problems - Anglican authors. Contents: I. Foundations: The hope of Christendom authentic, by F. N. Davey. The idea of a natural order, by V. A. Demant. The person and the family, by E. L. Mascall. Cultural forces in the human order, by T. S. Eliot. A civilization of technics, by Philip Mairet. Catholic sociology and the English situation, by M. B. Reckitt. --II. Vocation and ministry: Nature and rural man, by Patrick Mclaughlin. Man at work, by T. M. Heron. The town in to-morrow's Christendom, by Ruth Kenyon. The function of finance, by D. G. Peck. --III. Recovery in politics: The validity of politics, by W. G. Peck. The meaning of a nation, by Charles Smyth. The scope and limits of state initiative, by Ruth Kenyon. Nations as neighbours, By C. E. Hudson. --IV. The task before us: The forces against us, by Henry Balmforth. What we may count upon, by Rosalinde Wilton. Epilogue, by P. E. T. Widdrington Very good.
Seller: Burwood Books, Wickham Market, United Kingdom
Price: US$36.24 + shipping
Description: First Edition. 22 x 14 cm, 32 pages. Original light blue cloth with gilt title on spine. Very good condition. Book is slanted and begins to open between pages 8 and 9. Binding is faded. Some shelf wear and dust dulling. Internally bright and clean. Sprache: english.
Seller: West Coast Rare Books, Westport, MAYO, Ireland
Price: US$40.00 + shipping
Description: Fine cloth copy in a good if somewhat edge-nicked and dust-dulled dw, now mylar-sleeved. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong.; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 255 pages; Physical description: 255 p ; 23 cm. Subjects: Church and social problems - Anglican authors. Contents: I. Foundations: The hope of Christendom authentic, by F. N. Davey. The idea of a natural order, by V. A. Demant. The person and the family, by E. L. Mascall. Cultural forces in the human order, by T. S. Eliot. A civilization of technics, by Philip Mairet. Catholic sociology and the English situation, by M. B. Reckitt. --II. Vocation and ministry: Nature and rural man, by Patrick Mclaughlin. Man at work, by T. M. Heron. The town in to-morrow's Christendom, by Ruth Kenyon. The function of finance, by D. G. Peck. --III. Recovery in politics: The validity of politics, by W. G. Peck. The meaning of a nation, by Charles Smyth. The scope and limits of state initiative, by Ruth Kenyon. Nations as neighbours, By C. E. Hudson. --IV. The task before us: The forces against us, by Henry Balmforth. What we may count upon, by Rosalinde Wilton. Epilogue, by P. E. T. Widdrington. 1 Kg.
Seller: MW Books, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Eliot, T.S.. What is a Classic?. Faber & Faber, London, 1945.
Price: US$65.33 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: Fine/VG- (small dust jacket spine top chip). In Mylar cover. Printed on quality handmade paper. Out of print. Binding is cloth boards.
Seller: Bibliodisia Books, IOBA, MWABA, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
T. S. Eliot. What is a Classic. Faber & Faber, London, 1945.
Price: US$66.25 + shipping
Description: Dcover some loss to spine chipping at extremities
Seller: St Marys Books And Prints, Stamford, United Kingdom
Price: US$84.95 + shipping
Description: Very Good in Boards. Owners name William H. J. Kennedy Jr's name inked in and penciled in inscription to FEP. Small book store to sticker to FEP.
Seller: Rare Book Cellar, Pomona, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Second impression of the second issue. Slim octavo. 32pp. Light edgwear and binding just a bit cocked, about near fine in modestly soiled about very good dust jacket with wear along the topedge, a lightly toned spine, and a small chip at the crown. Also present is the about very good unprinted glassine dust jacket with a lightly toned spine, bit of loss at the crown, and several small chips and tears (some along the spine). Noted English poet Geoffrey Hill's copy with his owner signature on the front fly.
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$600.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: 8vo; 8 1/4 x 5 3/8 inches (218 x 135 mm); 32 pp., printed on heavy laid paper, lower edges uncut. Bright blue/turquoise cloth boards, gilt lettering on spine, light bumping on corners and tail of spine. Cream dust jacket printed in black and red, price clipped, a little thumbed and faded, extremities of dust jacket frayed with small chips at head and tail of spine panel. Bookseller ticket pasted inside front cover, Melbourne, Australia. [Gallup A45b]. This is the text of the first Annual Address to the Virgil Society, of which T. S. Eliot was the First President, 1943/44. Eliot sets out to define that the classic is a work that reflects the maturity of a culture. Indeed, he argues that "[a] classic can occur only when a civilization is mature; when a language and a literature are mature; and it must be the work of a mature mind." From the estate of Robert Cecil Bald (1901 -1965), an Australian scholar of English Literature, who moved to the US to teach at Cornell University in 1937 and was then a professor at the University of Chicago from 1952 to 1965.
Seller: Rob Zanger Rare Books LLC, Middletown, NY, U.S.A.
Eliot, T.S.. What is a Classic?. Faber, 1945.
Price: US$668.87 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: An address delivered before the Virgil Society on 16th October 1944. Spine slightly faded, else nice copy. Inscribed "To Kenneth Pickthorn from T.S. Eliot. 14.11.45." Kenneth Pickthorn was a History Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and contributed reviews to The Criterion, when T.S. Eliot was the editor. Rarely found inscribed.
Seller: Tindley and Everett, ABA, London, United Kingdom
ELIOT T.S.. What Is a Classic?. , 1945.
Price: US$5200.00 + shipping
Description: "ELIOT, T.S. What Is a Classic? An Address delivered before the Virgil Society on the 16th of October 1944. London: Faber & Faber, (1945). Slim octavo, original light blue cloth, supplied dust jacket. $5200.First edition, ordinary issue, presentation copy, of this presidential address delivered to the Virgil Society in 1944, inscribed in the year of publication to Eliot's beloved first spiritual counselor, a longtime Anglican vicar who served at St. Stephen's in Kensington, where the deeply religious Eliot worshipped and served as churchwarden during the final decades of his life: "To Fr. Eric Cheetham from T.S. Eliot. Ash Wednesday 1945."In his 1944 Presidential Address to the Virgil Society, Eliot placed the Latin poet 'at the center of European civilization'" (Yeats Eliot Review). Eliot arguedperhaps inspired by British classicist and scholar Jackson Knightthat Virgil was a sort of proto-Christian, embodying what Eliot saw as Christian values (e.g. a sense of duty to family, community, and God). The dust jacket has been supplied from another first edition copy. Gallup A45b. Preceded by the Virgil Society issue published in wrappers earlier the same year. This copy was inscribed on Ash Wednesday to Fr. Eric Cheetham, vicar of St. Stephen's in Kensington, London. Eliot had a deep Anglo-Catholic faith, which he discovered shortly after gaining British citizenship. Eliot lived in South Kensington for much of his life and joined St. Stephen's after he formally separated from his first wife, Vivienne. Between 1933 and 1940, Eliot sought spiritual refuge while living in the vicarage at St. Stephen's, where he came to know the vicar, Fr. Eric Cheetham. Cheetham was something of a friendly eccentric, known for his outgoing personality and his idiosyncratic church newsletter which eschewed standard punctuation in favor of a chatty, stream-of-consciousness style. Attempting to describe him, Eliot wrote: "He was a wonderfully jolly priest, the kind I always supposed G. K. Chesterton would have loved He had a miniature motor-bike to make his rounds, and used to say wistfully that he only wished he might have ridden it up the aisle, only the church would frown on him dispensing blessings from a Corgi." Leaning on Cheetham and St. Stephen's, Eliot found solace in the rites and rituals of the Anglican Church, regularly going to Confession and attending Mass. At his core, Eliot was a seeker and leaned toward historical religious tradition. In fact, he frequently attended silent retreats at Anglican monasteries attempting to grow closer to God. Nevertheless, Eliot committed himself to the more modern worship at St. Stephen's and even became a senior layman (churchwarden), helping to guide the congregation as he had been guided. In the end, Eliot spent over three decades at St. Stephen's.Book with interior quite nice, faint soiling to cloth, and a bit of toning to extremities. Dust jacket with a few tiny water spots and only light wear and toning to extremities. A handsome, extremely good copy with outstanding provenance."
Seller: Bauman Rare Books, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.