THE SOMERSET & DORSET THEN AND NOW.

Guild Publishing, London, (1986), book club edition. 272 pp, large 8vo (9 1/2" H), hard cover in dust jacket. Map endpapers, profusely illustrated with b&w photographs, maps, color plates. "The (Somerset & Doreset) line was recorded in its heyday by railway photographers of the first order, talents like those of Ivo Peters, Derek Cross and Dick Riley, men who recognized the unique variety of stock and scenery afforded by the line. Their pictures document the impact of the railway upon the landscape and capture the true atmosphere of the era. In this book will be found many previously unpublished examples of their work. Two decades after the closure of the Somerset & Dorset (1966) another photographer returned to the scenes of his predecessors' work and embarked on an unusual mission - to document what remained of this once proud line, and even more ambitiously, to record what can still be seen today from the same vantage points. Working out the precise location from which an earlier photograph was taken, Mac Hawkins has gone to extraordinary lengths to recreate the work of his antecedents...Including over 150 pairs of 'then and now' photographs and many maps, this unique record of the passage of time is considerably more than a volume of railway memorabilia - it is a fine tribute to the art of the earlier photographers and the skill and patience of Mac Hawkins..." Very faint cigarette odor, one small corner bump. Dust jacket has light edge wrinkling, minor rubbing, minor browning at top of flaps. VG/VG.