Raymond Briggs's 1,000-book library goes on sale at Oxfam
More than 1,000 books from the personal collection of Raymond Briggs, the British creator of The Snowman, have gone on sale, offering the public a rare window into the influences behind a distinctive European artistic voice.
More than 1,000 books from the personal collection of Raymond Briggs have been put up for sale at an Oxfam bookshop in Hove and online. The library was donated by the estate of the British author and cartoonist, who died in 2022 at the age of 88.
The collection spans comics, illustration, novels and social history, shedding light on the artistic influences behind works like The Snowman and Fungus the Bogeyman. It features pieces by Charles Schulz and EH Shepard, alongside roughly 30 comic annuals from the 1950s that map the visual world shaping Briggs’s early style.
“What’s fascinating is the range,” said Martin Hill, a volunteer at the Oxfam Hove bookshop. “You begin to see connections between the books Briggs created and the books and artists he chose to have around him.”
The library mirrors the ordinary and sometimes dark themes typical of Briggs’s output. It holds texts on ageing, domestic life and wartime milkmen, as well as pamphlets on nuclear disarmament—a subject he explored in his 1982 graphic novel When the Wind Blows. “It is serious, funny, ordinary and sometimes rather dark – which feels very familiar to anyone who knows Briggs’s work,” Hill added.
Other notable listings include a 1974 humour book by Monty Python’s Terry Jones and Michael Palin, reproduced sketches by John Constable, and a first edition of Russell Hoban’s post-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker. Prices on the charity’s online store range from £5.99 to £400 for a signed first edition of Graham Rawle’s 2005 book Woman’s World.
Briggs spent over 50 years living beneath the South Downs near Hove, an area that directly inspired The Snowman. He taught illustration at Brighton School of Art from the early 1960s until 1986.
The author built his reputation by subverting the conventions of children’s storytelling. “I don’t see any difference between doing children’s and adult books. My attitude is exactly the same. I just do the book as I want it to be,” Briggs said in a 2019 interview.
Hill summarised the significance of the sale, describing the collection as offering “a wonderful glimpse of the visual and intellectual world of one of Britain’s most distinctive illustrators”. The books are now available to browse in person or through the charity’s online store.
