Persona Grata

Cecil Beaton & Kenneth Tynan.

Allan Wingate. London. 1953. First edition. Hardback; blue cloth-bound boards, with silver decoration to front board and title to spine, dust jacket. 99 pages. Many b&w photographs on hors texte plates. English. 245 x 185mm. 0.7kg. . Very good, in very good dust jacket; slight spotting to endpapers, no inscriptions; some shelf wear to dust jacket, a few small nicks, slight loss to forecorners and spine ends, slight rubbing to folds, spotting to verso, price-clipped.

The world's greatest photographer and the enfant prodigue of our dramatic critics have, in this beautifully designed book, joined forces to produce an anthology of unique human beings: a portrait gallery, in words and photographs, of about 100 living people whom they, its self-appointed curators, both admire... They have sought, in making their choice of exhibits, certain qualities, chief among which are energy, elegance, wit, craftsmanship, and a dash of the unpredictable.' (from the blurb).   An amusing alphabetical anthology of 100 living people admired by the two contributors. Cecil Beaton provided the photographs and book design, including the dust jacket; Kenneth Tynan, the theatre critic, provided the text. Under B there is John Betjeman, Richard Burton, Balenciaga and Francis Bacon, G hosts Greta Garbo, Judy Garland and John Gielgud, whilst S features Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell. From the library of theatre designer David Collis.