In Love Cecil, Lisa Immordino Vreeland offers an evocative portrait of this talented whirlwind whose creative work was tied to his intense social life.

Using photography, drawings, letters, and scrapbooks by Beaton and his contemporaries, along with excerpts from his sparkling diaries and other writings, Immordino Vreeland brings his spirit to life in a way that no previous book has been able to do.

Immordino Vreeland organises her book around the circles of Beaton's daily life: the people who inspired and influenced him, his colourful friends, his fellow photographers, his Hollywood conquests, his English roots, and others.

This cavalcade offers a shimmering vision of high style, but it also captures often-troubled souls struggling to create the open, tolerant, creative worlds of art and culture that we have inherited today.