In the original dustsheet. Binding the same as the dustsheet.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

I bought this as a gift for my trolleybus and tram loving former husband with whom I’m still on surprisingly good terms. His love of public transport was not the cause of our break up, I hasten to add.

When we were married, the bookshelves bowed with tomes like this often printed on shiny paper with old photographs of public transport in them. I have dusted enough volumes like this to know that ‘Buses, Trolleys & Trams’ would be right up his street. I could not help dipping into it – albeit briefly – and it has all the hallmarks of something that’s likely to be a definitive work on the subject, including the fact that it’s a reprint of an original work from over forty years ago. Large parts of it are of passing interest to one who has had to endure trolleybus videos so I’d say it’s written in an accessible style given its rather esoteric content. It’s always interesting anyway to read words written with the zeal of someone who’s a fan of the subject even if the subject fails to inspire enthusiasm in the universal breast. Some of my own lack of enthusiasm towards all things public transport I’d frankly put down to being cornered atop a vintage and stationery Routemaster bus by such an enthusiast when accompanying the ex Mr D to a vehicle rally. To such a zealot, even the seat coverings provided rich territory for displaying one’s knowledge. This was a sort of Pavlov’s dogs type of epiphany for me and I haven’t been near a bus since. There are lots of coloured pictures in ‘Buses, Trolleys & Trams’ too, though this is much more than just a picture book. The only thing that concerns me is that the book did seem a little familiar to me and there is every chance the ex Mr D already has it in the 1967 first edition. The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether, in its first edition of course, this may be one of the very same books I threw at him in the choppy waters of Christmas 1998. In which case I’m sure he’ll welcome this facsimile replacement with spine intact.