British Historical Portraits : a selection from the National Portrait Gallery

Cambridge University Press for the National Portrait Gallery, Cambridge, first edition, 1957. Cloth, contrasting spine-panel, 8vo, 23 cm,. 265, [1] pp, 382 ills, . From the blurb: "The National Portrait Gallery in London was founded a hundred years ago. It now holds about four thousand portraits of the most distinguished Britons, and is an epitome of the art of portraiture in England. This selection gives about a tenth of the collection. The portraits are followed by biographical notes on the sitters. It is easy to start listing the people portrayed here, but hard to know where to stop. Most of the English monarchs are shown, and to take the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries only, Sidney, Drake, Essex, Raleigh, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Bunyan, Pepys, Newton, Wren, Purcell, Locke, Dryden, to name only the most famous, indicate the kind of richness of interest in the subjects. The selection extends to the present day. There can be hardly anyone interested in British life who having opened the book can put it down before he has looked at every picture. It will be specially useful to teachers of English history and literature. Top edge slightly dust-stained, otherwise Very Good in worn and chipped and price-clipped dustwrapper.