A luxurious 1920s photograph album containing approximately 400 images of upper-class life and travel, notably including an apparently undocumented photograph of George Bernard Shaw at Lake Maggiore.

Bibliographic Details

Author / subject / compiler: [Features photos of George Bernard Shaw, Susanne Lenglen, Helen Wills] – Personal album of Helen Geraldine Wild.
Title: Personal photograph album documenting travel and social life, including Lake Maggiore and European resorts.
Date: Circa 1920s (including 1926 Lake Maggiore material).
Format: 26 thick card leaves (52 pages) containing approximately 400 photographs mounted back-to-back.
Imagery: Original silver gelatin photographs, mostly approx. 6.8 × 5 cm, with some smaller examples; captions in contemporary blue ink beneath each image.
Binding: Full dark brown hatched morocco with gilt ruling and inner gilt dentelles; all edges gilt; original album format.
Size: Album approx. 26 × 17.8 × 4.5 cm.
Provenance: Ownership inscription of Helen Geraldine Wild; maker’s label of Charles J. Withnell of Scarborough to front pastedown.

Condition

Very Good to Near Fine. A well-preserved and attractive album. Some foxing to blank endpapers and linen stubs, with minor scattered foxing to edges of leaves. Photographs generally clean and well retained. Binding strong and highly decorative. Please view images carefully or request further details if required.

Description

A richly evocative and visually engaging photograph album of the Roaring Twenties, documenting the travels, leisure pursuits, and social circles of an evidently affluent English family in the years following the First World War.

The album, compiled by Helen Geraldine Wild, ranges widely across Britain and continental Europe, with sequences depicting locations such as Fowey, Yorkshire, Paris, Cannes, Mentone, Eastbourne, Whitby, Beaulieu, Nice, Milan, and Lake Maggiore. Together the photographs form a vivid portrait of interwar upper-class life: seaside holidays, country excursions, continental travel, and fashionable social gatherings.

Particularly lively are the pages devoted to a tennis event in Cannes, including photographs of leading international players such as Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills, as well as men’s champion Umberto de Morpurgo. These images capture the glamour and cultural prominence of elite sport during the period.

The album is elevated, however, by a remarkable sequence of photographs taken during a visit to Baveno and Stresa on Lake Maggiore in 1926. Among these appears an apparently undocumented image of George Bernard Shaw, leaning from the cabin doorway of a boat, dressed informally in a flat cap and collared shirt. The image has a spontaneous, intimate quality rarely encountered in formal photographic portraits of Shaw.

At the time, Shaw—having recently turned seventy—was staying in the region and was involved in a well-documented romantic episode with the American actress Molly Tompkins, who was living on one of the islands in the lake. His presence in this informal setting, captured within a private album, provides a rare and humanising glimpse of one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated literary figures. A further photograph in the same sequence shows the British conductor Albert Coates, whom Shaw befriended during this stay.

Notes

The album itself is a fine object, bound in full hatched morocco with gilt decoration and all edges gilt, reflecting the status and means of its original owner. The presence of neat contemporary captions throughout greatly enhances both the documentary and narrative value of the collection.

Albums of this scale and quality, containing a mixture of social history, travel photography, and identifiable historical figures, are increasingly sought after. The inclusion of a previously unrecorded image of George Bernard Shaw, together with scenes of prominent sporting and cultural figures, makes this an especially compelling and unusual survival.

A visually rich and historically resonant album, offering a rare window into the social world of the 1920s and a striking informal encounter with one of its most important literary personalities.