An Oxford University Chest is a book about the University of Oxford, written by the poet Sir John Betjeman and first published by John Miles in London in 1938. The full title is An Oxford University Chest. Comprising a Description of the Present State of the Town and University of Oxford with an itinerary arranged alphabetically.
The book includes photographs by László Moholy-Nagy and illustrations by Osbert Lancaster and by Edward Bradley, the latter reproduced from the Victorian novel The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green.
The title is a pun on the University Chest, the financial treasury of the university. The book provides glimpses into the life and characteristics of the university.
A paperback edition was issued by Oxford University Press in 1979.
Famous quotes containing the words oxford, university and/or chest:
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
“Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)