Thoughts After Lambeth [Criterion Miscellany No. 30]

London: Faber & Faber Ltd, 1931. First edition (one of only 300 printed). Octavo. Scarcer issue in original grey cloth with gilt title on front board. Slight sunning to spine and board edges, and small marks to front board; moderate wear to boards, with faint spotting along front board edge; toning to paste-downs and free endpapers; as usual, lacks fine-tissue wrapper; else near-fine.. First edition of T. S. Eliot's (1888-1965) Thoughts After Lambeth in original grey cloth, of which only 300 were issued, which sets forth Eliot's reflections on the Church of England's Lamberth Conference of 1930. The Lambeth Conference is a decennial assembly of bishops of the Anglican Communion convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury to collaboratively discuss issues of the day. The 1930 Lambeth Conference (the seventh such conference to be convened) became notable for its Resolution 15, which permitted the use of contraception in marriage despite previous conference resolutions to the contrary. The Times predicted that the Lambeth Conference would ultimately change the social and moral life of humanity, and the passage of Resolution 15 became notorious for its support of artificial contraception. Indeed, the conference's passage of Resolution 15 marked one of the first instances of an institutional authority (within or without the Church) publicly validating the use of artificial contraception. In Thoughts After Lambeth, Eliot offers his views on the meaning of the 1930 Lambeth Conference and what it represents for Christianity and, more broadly, the modern West. A nice first edition of this Eliot work in the scarcer cloth issue.