Beaton in Vogue

Sir Cecil Beaton began his photographic career as a boy with a Brownie camera and debuted in Vogue with what Beaton himself called "a slightly out-of-focus snapshot" in 1924. For 50 years he contributed photographs, drawings, and written dispatches to the British, American, and French editions of the magazine. Ross's (Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners) brief biographical introduction is light on analysis or critique, and she lets Beaton's own words and pictures dominate the book. His illustrated essays for American Vogue are accessible via ProQuest's Vogue Archive as originally published, but scholars will likely find that the context this title provides is preferable. Images spanning his career trace subjects from the Windsors to Picasso to Twiggy, with reprints from Beaton's amiable chats about style and society. In "Beaton at War," this unlikely but observant correspondent trains his eye on Royal Air Force bases and bombed cities. The book concludes with an index of portrait subjects and a list of original sources.