10804.i.3, 1

Imprint: London: Richard Bentley and Son, New Burlington Street. Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen [1888].

Folio, half-leather and brown buckram boards, measuring 372 x 290 mm and containing 36 carbon print portraits, guard-mounted on stout blue card, accompanied by letterpress biographical memoir for each subject. The card mounts are pre-printed with the photographer's credit in the lower left corner and most are also printed 'W. & S. Ltd. Permanent,' with the prints laid down within a ruled border. The series was issued in monthly parts from January 1888, each part priced at two shillings and sixpence and containing three portraits. The wrappers for January and December 1888 are bound in at the end of the volume. In his printed introduction to the project, Barraud writes that 'I purpose giving a variety of portraits of a large size in permanent photography, and to select each month portraits of those persons of most interest to the world at the moment. The work will have a wide scope, in which Literature, Science, Art, Politics, the Church, the Bar, the Stage, the Army, the Navy, the leaders of fashion, etc., will all find representation. Each number will contain three photographs, accompanied by biographical notices, and will be published at the beginning of each month. It will be easy to remove any photograph for framing, should it be desired.' Barraud clearly hoped that the series would run for a considerable time: 'The great strides photography has made of late years enable me to issue permanent photographs of a large size, at a very moderate price, and it will be my earnest endeavour to render the pictures ever more and more perfect. Many of the portraits will appear in this work only, and be especially taken for it, but there are in hand sufficient negatives of great interest, and of large size, to supply the photographs for several years; and the fact of the portrait of an actor or actress having been issued in one character will not deter me from sometimes giving a second and different portrait of the same person in another number of the magazine, so that comparisons can be made as to the individuality assumed by the artist ... At the end of each year title-pages, list of contents, and covers can be supplied for binding, and as each volume will contain thirty-six portraits of eminent persons of interest, it will make, at the close of the year, a handsome gift-book.' The complete series comprises seven volumes, terminating in 1894.