1. Rene GROEBLI. Magie der Schiene [Magic of the Tracks].... Zurich, 1949. £800

René Groebli’s Magie de Schiene is a landmark book in Swiss photography and graphic design; it is an excellent example of how a clean, minimal layout and considered sequencing can make a captivating book from just fourteen photographs and succeeds in capturing the thrill of steam-powered rail travel without seeming at all sentimental.

2. Ed van der ELSKEN. Jazz. Amsterdam, 1959. £300

In Jazz, Ed van der Elsken’s photographs and, crucially, his design capture the freeform nature of the music and the energy and intensity of the performers and crowd alike.

3. Eugene ATGET. Atget Photographe de Paris / préface par Pierre Mac-Orlan. Paris, 1930. £975

Jacques Henri Lartigue’s photographs of his childhood and early adolescence are filled with wonder and curiosity. This is the best book on his work.

4. MAN RAY. Man Ray Photographs 1920-1934 Paris. Hartford, New York City, Paris, 1934. £3,750

This beautiful and beautifully printed monograph, the first devoted to Man Ray’s photographs, contains his best-known pictures.

5. Jacques Henri LARTIGUE. Diary of a Century. New York, 1970. £1,500

Jacques Henri Lartigue’s photographs of his childhood and early adolescence are filled with wonder and curiosity. This is the best book on his work.

6. Alvin Langdon COBURN. Men of Mark. London and New York, 1913. £5,000

Alvin Langdon Coburn made a point of meeting and photographing those people whose writing or expressed vision he admired. Men of Mark is the first collection of these portraits, presented in a chronological order, which hints at a chain of introductions to Coburn from the sitters to one another. George Bernard Shaw was particularly helpful with his letters of introduction.