"Early Cars," by Michael Sedgwick.

128 pp. 8-1/2 in. x 8 in. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 20, New Bond Street, London, W.1. 27s. 6d.)

This is another pictorial history of the motor car, copiously illustrated, many of the plates being in colour, although it is still quite expensive. The author is a writer who is both very readable and scrupulously accurate and he presents his story in a style that is informative and never boring. All one wishes is that there were more of it.

Lots of the pictures have appeared elsewhere but as Sedgwick has had the Montagu Museum Library archives to delve into, many of them are refreshingly new and well-chosen, particularly those of historic racing cars. The text, although written for a series called “Pleasures and Treasures” is not unduly written down to the level of the general reader, so that even hard-bitten historians will derive pleasure from it.

“Early Cars” is dedicated to “Daphne,” behind which one suspects a romance not of the kind associated merely with early cars.—W. B.