A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember Including One Hundred and Three Good Things, Five Bad Kings, and Two Genuine Dates
History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember.
1066 and All That A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember Including One Hundred and Three Good Things, Five Bad Kings, and Two Genuine Dates
Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1930.
First edition. Original red cloth lettered in gilt in pictorial dustwrapper. Illustrated throughout in line by John Reynolds. A near fine copy, spotting to page edges, in a very near fine dustwrapper, exceptionally crisp and clean, with 1 short closed tear and some light spots to rear. Scarce, especially in this condition.
A satire on history and our confused recollections of it. Originally serialised in Punch, the now famous spoof history book is at heart a parody of the relentlessly England-centric history in schoolbooks at the time. In mood and tone, if only indirectly in subject, it is a book generated from war, inspired by Robert Graves's wartime autobiography Goodbye to All That. Both Sellar and Yeatman had also served during WWI and they used a certain splendid irony to destroy any idea of the continuum of history. "History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself." [Compulsory Preface].
This book about 'history' has itself became part of UK history, its title being used by journalists, headline writers and authors, to indicate any span of British history.
Stock ID: 40602
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