A collection of photographs by the Edwardian photographer Horace Nicholls. He captured the animated crowd scenes at great sporting events like the Derby, and achieved telling contrasts in his close-ups, from a Vanderbilt luncheon party to the outstetched arms of men begging for leftover food.

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
British photojournalist Nicholls, who learned his profession covering the Boer War, went on to stalk English sporting events during the Edwardian era, photographing the hordes of enthusiastic commoners and aristocrats who turned out to view regattas, horse races and the like. "Individuals pursuing communal pleasures kindled Nicholls' imagination," notes Buckland, former curator of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, in her instructive commentary on the 150 duotone photographs collected here. The oversized beflowered and beribboned hats of women, poker-faced as they study the movement of boats and beasts, are testament to the seriousness of Edwardian entertainment, while droll portraits of impeccably dignified men in top hats and tails are timelessly amusing. Nicholls cast a wide net in surveying the sporting scene, capturing beggars in A Rush for Crumbs Which Fall from the Rich Man's Table and the exhausted sleep of countrymen obliged to walk a great distance to witness Derby Day at Epsom.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Horace W. Nicholls (1867-1941), a portrait photographer turned photojournalist, is celebrated in this monograph for the glimpse he gave us of Edwardian Society. His photographs of the "Smart Set" enjoying the Season--the Derby, Royal Ascot, the Regattas, the Riviera--and of the less fortunate classes appeared in the English press from 1904 to 1914. While these pictures are highly evocative of Britain's "golden summer," the biography in the final third of the book is equally engaging. A confident, witty self-promoter, Nicholls had a full life in photography, taking thousands of pictures as a war correspondent during the Boer War, as a freelance photojournalist in the popular press, and as staff photographer for the Department of Information in World War I. Bukland's writing, as always, is entertaining, and the photographs are richly printed in duotone.
- Ann Copeland, formerly with Drew Univ. Lib., Madison, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.