Before the Queen and this pantheon of illustrious subjects, Bank of England notes were illustrated with magnificent images of Britannia or made use of florid, if unaccompanied, script and lettering.
The abiding heroes are Man o'War, Seabiscuit, Secretariat and Cigar, and the second of that illustrious quartet is the subject of Laura Hillenbrand's loving study.
Jean Bach first laid eyes on the astonishing photograph more than a decade after its 57 subjects — all illustrious figures from jazz's golden age — posed on the steps of a Harlem brownstone in the summer of 1958.
One of the first things he told writer was that the town is vociferously divided on the subject of its illustrious son.
Then I tried to convince the assembled group that the subject of our illustrious panel should be about the impact of the changing technological landscape on writing itself.
But what makes Mattotti's work singular among that of his illustrious colleagues is the range of subject matter he has tackled over the years.
His subjects included such illustrious figures as the Man with Two Faces, the World's Smallest Mother, Penguin Boy, Willie "Popeye" Ingram, and the iconic Artoria Gibbons.
"Within a republic, even illustrious and powerful people must be subject to judicial scrutiny when they are suspected of criminal activity, which is based, in this case, on dozens of testimonies and extensive documentary evidence.
Least of all Simon Cowell, who gave 200 hours of access and finds himself in the illustrious company of Tom Bower's other subjects such as Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black.
"A virtuous king," wrote Logan Pearsall Smith, "is a king who has shirked his proper function: to embody for his subjects an ideal of illustrious behaviour absolutely beyond their reach".
