Book excerpt: The Authorized Images Famous Authors Seen Through Antique and Vintage Postcards: Omnibus Edition is Comprised of 5 Volumes The Authorized Images Famous Authors Seen Through Antique and Vintage Postcards Volume 1: Introduction to (and History of) Literary Picture Postcards Volume One of Authorized Images is a comprehensive history of how the picture postcard came into existence. The Introduction then offers an overview of printed paper collectables which were the ancestors of postcards. These precursors include, for instance, the carte-de-visite, greeting cards, trading cards, and printed envelopes. Then the focus becomes more refined, examining the emergence of the specifically literary postcard, a category which includes, of course, portraits of authors, but, in addition, images of their homes, schools, graves, statues, relatives, lovers, monuments, as well as depictions of characters from their books.