Moments Preserved provides an overview of Penn's early career, which began in earnest in 1943 when Vogue art director Alexander Liberman hired him as an assistant. Liberman sensed his talent as a photographer and encouraged him to pursue it as a career. Penn found that he could muster little enthusiasm for his ideas amongst Vogue's distinguished roster of photographers, which at that time included Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, Cecil Beaton and George Platt Lynes, so Liberman suggested he try making the photographs himself. Vogue used Penn's image on the cover of the October 1, 1943 issue, the first time a still-life was used on the cover in the magazine's history.

First edition; 4to (325 x 240 mm, 12¾ x 9½ in); black-and-white and colour photographs, introduction by Alexander Liberman, captions by Penn with the assistance of Rosemary Blackmon; plain endpapers, offsetting and light marking, beige cloth-covered boards, spine lettered in black, minor toning to spine, starting at head, white dust-jacket printed in grey, toning to spine, lightly marked, minor wear to extremities, photo-illustrated paper-covered board slipcase, minor toning, lightly marked, near-fine in a very good dust-jacket and slipcase; 184pp.

Regards sur un siècle de photographie à travers Le Livre 123; The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century pp158-9; The Open Book pp186-7; 802 photo books from the Auer collection p401.