The English at Home

First edition of The English at Home by Bill Brandt. First impression. Medium format hardback in very good condition. Some age related wear but the boards, pages and spine are all clean and intact.

Bill Brandt's influential first photo book. At the time of publication Brandt was working as a freelance photographer for Weekly Illustrated and Picture Post in London and he applies his skills for social documentary to great effect in The English At Home. With photos of London policemen, busby hats, Harrow garden parties and fox hunting the book lulls the reader into a false sense of patriotic security. Soon images of miners, cramped working class homes, 'A Whitechapel Blind Beggar' and 'A Billingsgate Porter' begin to encroach. Brandt then makes definite statements concerning the disparity of the classes by creating such juxtapositions as 'Workmen's Restaurant' and 'Clubmen's Sanctuary', 'Circus Boyhood' and 'Nursery Girlhood', and 'East End Playground' and 'Kensington Children's Party'. Brandt, who grew up in Germany, has the eyes of a relative outsider. His photographs portray England as a country of contradictions; England has it's marvellous traditions but it also has it's intense failings.