"I Take Great Pleasure" 1956 BEATON, Cecil (INSCRIBED)
$450
BEATON, Cecil
[214] pp.
The John Day Company
1956
8 1/4" x 5 3/4"
Signed best wishes Cecil Beaton
If Hollywood ever decides to make a movie about Cecil Beaton, a smart but obscure subject matter would be his account of the six months he traveled through America on the lecture circuit. The topic of the tour was his career, and at age fifty, Beaton seemed eager to put it in perspective, at times worrying his wide-ranging talents made him a dilettante. [History has judged him more kindly than he imagined.] Well-meaning parvenus he meets along the way make amusing fodder, but he has genuine admiration for those he encounters, and his manner is more kindhearted than one might expect.
“Americans are not materialistic in the money sense: they are too generous and wasteful, too idealistic for that.”
--Cecil Beaton