This book is an interesting one. It dates from the 1880s and is essentially  a collection of those considered celebrities throughout history. The men included, and I’m not being generalist here there are no women, range from Alexander the Great, to Geoffrey Chaucer,to Simon de Montford.

The book describes itself as cataloguing: warriors, sailors, monarchs, statesmen, patriots, reformers, thinkers and writers. It also has a number of lovely printed illustrations. For each person depicted it usually has, at least, a picture and in some cases, like Simon de Montford’s, depictions of their actions. In de Montford’s case it is a picture of him expelling ‘Jews and other aliens.’ As you can see it is a book of its time. It is a beautifully put together book though and it is an interesting illustration of how our ideas of celebrity have changed, even if the information is a bit outdated.