Summoned By Bells. by BETJEMAN, John - 1960

London: John Murray,, 1960. First edition, limited issue, one of 125 copies signed by the author and specially bound; this an out-of-series copy, from the library of Betjeman's friend, the broadcaster and bookseller Douglas Cleverdon, with his bookplate on the half-title. It was given to Cleverdon as a gift for his 60th birthday in 1963, with a gift inscription beneath the Betjeman's signature in a different hand: "To Douglas Cleverdon with felicitations on sixty glorious years, from Theodore". Loosely inserted is a single leaf written in the same hand, thanking Cleverdon for his "lovely party", and referring to the the publisher John Murray's delight when copies of this work sold out. Cleverdon and Betjeman were both first-generation university students at Oxford. They were introduced by Harold Acton, and when Cleverdon graduated and joined the BBC he began regularly commissioning Betjeman: "theirs was to be one of the most mutually fruitful friendships for the rest of their lives" (Letters, p. 328). The trade edition does not have the portrait frontispiece or plate. Octavo. Original green calf, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, covers decorated with bell pattern in gilt, top edge gilt, lower edge untrimmed, green bell-patterned endpapers. Portrait frontispiece with tissue-guard, one plate, illustrations in the text by Michael Tree. Covers bowed, extremities a touch worn, a very good copy indeed. Peterson A29b. Candida Lycett Green, ed., John Betjeman, Letters. Volume One: 1926 to 1951, 1994.