A lavishly illustrated biography of Arthur Barbosa, the artist who, over more than sixty years, provided dust jackets for some of the twentieth century's most famous authors of fiction, including Georgette Heyer, Doris Leslie, C. S. Forester, Patrick O'Brian, Joanna Trollope, Graham Greene, Sax Rohmer, Jules Verne, Anthony Powell, Lytton Strachey and, of course, George MacDonald Fraser, plus The Radio Times and West End Theatre productions.

Born in Liverpool, he moved to London at the end of the 1920s where he became a noted and respected illustrator and commercial artist. A lifelong friend of Rex Harrison, he also numbered among his friends and acquaintances Cecil Beaton, Frederick Ashton, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.