LIFE Legends: The Century's Most Unforgettable Faces Hardcover – 4 Feb. 1999

great book

Life's photographic archives, which are now co-joined with those of Time and the Hulton Photo Library amongst others, must be extensive and comparable to those of National Geographic (which is a little older but remains in regular publication) and amounting to hundreds of thousands but probably millions of images. If NatGeo can publish several books, each with a variety of themes, including one on 'Portraits' although not essentially of figures of any national or worldwide importance, I would have thought that Life could do rather better than this slightly mean attempt.I only ever saw a few isolated editions of 'Life', and then many years ago, plus a few specific reprints and there must be literally tens of thousands of images in the collection of people of significance that would have proven suitable for inclusion in such a book.'Life' was a people-oriented magazine and did not bother with the sort of subjects that would typify those of NatGeo's essays. It was a news and current events type of magazine and if a beautiful landscape happened to be in the background of a shot, it was probably not noticed by the photographer who would have concentrated on the human subject(s) within the scene.Life's photographers covered many Hollywood events, many in New York and other US cities that involved celebrities or people of retrospective historical importance, not excluding those events elsewhere in the world regardless of their nature as well as wars and assorted disasters where certain individuals, not necessarily seen as being 'important' at the time but possibly viewed differently today, might well have been the subject.'Legends' and 'The Century's Most Unforgettable Faces' are not exactly limiting terms and, considering just how many sports or TV stars are considered as 'legends' this year but who may be forgotten in 5 or 10 years', I am sure that the book's editors could have been less exclusive. Either that or they may have not had unlimited access to the full archive.For the vast proportion of its existence, 'Life' was a weekly publication and I am sure that its photographers would have taken as many shots as they could as the situations, whatever they might have been, would allow. Was the editors' remit limited to those images actually published, hence the low numbers? Even if that limitation was real and intended, there should still be rather more!For example, in The Great LIFE Photographers there are some 600-plus pages and a larger number of images, mostly of people whose names are well-known in one context or another. Obviously, I am not suggesting that the same images should or could be re-used here, although some may be, but they cannot represent the vast majority of the 'cream' of Life's collection, leaving a relatively measly few for this book.I have no criticism concerning the quality of imagery provided, only the quantity! Therefore the book is slightly disappointing but still worthy of addition to a collection, if a copy can still be found.

Unfortunately 176 pages are not nearly enough to cover this sort of subject matter properly. I mean to say the books split-up into sections like 'Creators' 'Couples' 'Eccentrics' 'Sporting life' to name just four and how do you decide in those sections whose photos you are going to include and who your going to leave out? In more than one place I think due to a lack of space, there was only one or two entries when in reality there should have been at least seven or eight more. OK, the comments or quotes accompanying the photos whether made by the person photographed or someone else were amusing but the lack of photos let the book down I think, so only 3 stars.

This type of book was expensive when it was new. Now this is a steal. Although it's used it's fairly new. If you like photography as I do every personality in this book is a classics.

I had written a review before, but will repeat the same. The books (I had ordered 8) came shipped in a box, with each book carefully protected with plastic. Excellent product and service.

Book came with a few tears at the seem but it’s fine!

I love this book. I love those pictures, I love those quotes. This book was my every day inspiration during many years.

A beautiful book with some wonderful photos of legends in our time. Very impressed with it and it arrived in great condition and early.A great find and price.