Tony Ray-Jones spent some time in America during the early to mid-1960s, training as a graphic designer at Yale and later with Alexey Brodovitch. On returning to England in 1966, he sought to photograph the 'English Way of life', particularly how people spent their leisure time. In Creative Camera in October 1968, he made an important statement about his attitude to his photographs of the English:
'My aim is to communicate something of the spirit and the mentality of the English, their habits and their way of life, the ironies that exist in the way they do things, partly through tradition and daily anachronisms in an honest and descriptive manner, the visual aspect being directed by the content. For me there is something very special and rather humorous about the "English way of life" and I wish to record it from my particular point of view before it becomes more Americanized. We are at an important stage in our history, having in a sense just been reduced to an island or defrocked and, as De Gaulle remarked, left naked. Nudity is perhaps more revealing of personality than a heavily clothed figure.'

First edition; (263 x 233 mm, 10¼ x 9¼ in); black-and-white photographs, light toning to edges; plain endpapers with production crease to rear pastedown, tan cloth-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt with publisher's device in gilt to upper side, shaken and slightly cocked, photo-illustrated dust-jacket, white, text in black, light wear, light toning to spine and upper panel at spine, a very good copy with a folding Arts Council leaflet for 'The English Seen', a touring exhibition of Tony Ray-Jones photographs; 16, [128]pp.

The Open Book pp302-3; [French edition] 802 photo books from the Auer collection p583