Cecil Beaton was a man of dazzling charm and style and his talents were many. At the age of twenty he sent Vogue an out-of-focus snap of an undergraduate play, and for the next half-century and more he kept readers of the magazines up to date with all the various activities of his long and creative career. In his twenties he recorded London and New York society in needle-sharp words and drawings. Conde Nast, the owner of Vogue, compelled him to abandon his pocket Kodak, and his resulting photographic work earned him a place among the great chroniclers of fashion. Witty and inventive, he designed settings for plays and films – and for himself – and as a writer he was an eloquent champion of stylish living. His accounts of travel made the most luscious places seem tantalizingly vivid and close.