This publication provides detailed sketches of the personal and professional lives of some of Britain's most influential figures. From Lord Charles Beresford, future admiral and pride of the Navy, who almost caused a war between the United States and England when he 'forcibly remov[ed]...the eagle from the American Consul's dwelling" (p.10, 1898), to J.K. Starley, inventor of the Safety Bicycle (p.68, 1898), to Samuel James Waring, without whose influence we would (according to the editor) still be sitting on horsehair-covered sofas and looking at 'wallpapers that one would imagine could only have been evolved from the brain of a delirious market-gardener', this periodical is full of interesting history.