Nowadays, so many author photos show writers staring pensively out a window or off into the distance, or gazing intensely at the camera, cupping their faces with their hands. WRITERS REVEALED: Treasures From the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, London (National Portrait Gallery, 288 pp., $35) looks beyond these contrived literary poses for unspoken insights into the people behind the words.
Bringing together paintings and photographs of British writers from the past 500 years — alongside the subjects’ notes, letters and other ephemera — the book’s editors, Alexandra Ault and Catharine MacLeod, offer contemporary readers a greater connection with some of the most familiar names in the history of English literature.
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