Presentation copy inscribed by Berlin to his indexer. A collection of Berlin's tributes to great figures of the 20th century, including Churchill, Weizmann, Huxley, Einstein, Pasternak and Akhmatova. As the title suggests, Berlin knew these people on a personal level and his writing reminds the reader that his understanding of ideas is inextricably intertwined with his understanding of the people whose ideas they are.

Douglas Matthews was a greatly respected book indexer. Among his achievements (besides the works of Isaiah Berlin) were the monumental indexes to the papers of Daniel Defoe, the Dickens letters and the magisterial three-volume life of Kaiser Wilhelm written by John Röhl, who recalled Douglas's 'astonishing ability to keep hundreds of thousands of names and places in his head all at once, like doing Rubik's Cube without the cube'.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed in black ink on the upper flyleaf 'For Douglas Matthews / with the author's gratitude / and regard / Oxford 30.10.80'; 8vo (220 x 140 mm); in the publisher's blue cloth with title to spine, bottom of spine slightly faded, with the dust jacket, a little sunned otherwise a fine copy.