More than 1,000 books from the personal library of the late Raymond Briggs — the Brighton-area illustrator and author behind The Snowman, Fungus the Bogeyman, When the Wind Blows and Ethel & Ernest — have been put up for sale at Oxfam’s bookshop in Hove and via the charity’s online listings.
Local collection with national resonance
Briggs lived beneath the South Downs for over five decades and taught illustration at Brighton School of Art from the early 1960s until 1986. The material on offer reflects both his professional life and the personal interests that informed it: illustration, cartoons, comics and social history sit alongside unexpected domestic titles.
The books include work by well-known illustrators and cartoonists such as Aubrey Beardsley, E. H. Shepard, Charles Schulz, Edward Gorey and Posy Simmonds. Around 30 comic annuals from the 1950s have been highlighted as particularly revealing, offering a look at the visual culture that helped shape Briggs’ distinctive style.
“What's fascinating is the range. You begin to see connections between the books Raymond Briggs created and the books and artists he chose to have around him,”
The remark came from Martin Hill, a volunteer at Oxfam’s Hove bookshop who has been helping catalogue and prepare the collection for sale. Hill said the selection ranges from the serious and scholarly to the domestic and occasionally dark — traits familiar to readers of Briggs’ work.
What’s in the collection
- More than 1,000 titles spanning illustration, comics and social history
- About 30 comic annuals from the 1950s
- A signed first edition of Graham Rawle’s Woman's World
- Historic comic annuals and works dealing with nuclear disarmament
- Oddments reflecting domestic life, such as Britain’s Wartime Milkmen
Some books in the collection have clear links to Briggs’ output. The landscape behind the flight scene in The Snowman is said to have been inspired by the Downs near his home, and Brighton’s Royal Pavilion appears in the story. Themes such as nuclear anxiety recur in titles that echo When the Wind Blows, while Ethel & Ernest finds a personal echo in material relating to Briggs’ father, Ernest.
Charity, access and context
Oxfam says every purchase will support its work tackling poverty and inequality around the world. Hundreds of the titles are already available in the Hove shop, with more items listed online, giving local readers and collectors a chance to buy directly or browse from afar.
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Illustration & Cartooning | Aubrey Beardsley, E. H. Shepard, Posy Simmonds |
| Comics & Annuals | 1950s comic annuals (around 30 items) |
| Social History | Titles on wartime life and nuclear disarmament |
| Signed/Collectible | Signed first edition of Graham Rawle's Woman's World |
For local residents this is an opportunity to see the material that surrounded one of Britain’s most distinctive illustrators and to buy books that illuminate his influences. For visitors, the Hove shop provides immediate access to a curated slice of Briggs’ reading, while online listings widen that reach.
The books join the wider cultural legacy of Briggs across Sussex: his years teaching in Brighton, the landscape that inspired key scenes, and the enduring popularity of his seasonal and often poignantly comic stories. Purchases will help Oxfam’s fundraising while bringing those influences back into readers’ hands and homes.
