It is always fascinating to take a trip back in time on how photography was back in those still formative years. Putting myself in the reader's shoes, one must remember the use of some words then aren't the same as today. However, what helps me the most with this and books like it is that first there's usually a portrait or illustration of the author in the front papers of the book. Secondly is knowing as soon as I started reading, that the author pretty much spoke in that manner and noting he was a man who was very proud of this work, his tone is somewhat boastful. Overall this was a great piece of history to read. Being only 74 pages, quite a few are advertisements, it proved to be a quick read. Basically I devoured in less than two hours. What I recommend about the book to my professional peers is if you want to try to being using a simple start of portrait lighting methodology, this is an excellent book to get it going. Once you get past the "temporal language barriers" the material is fairly straight forward and quite lively. Above all...read it with an open mind that is willing to learn old tech.