The author worked for Handley Page until the firm closed in 1970, and obviously loved it. Frederick Handley Page was one of the great British aviation pioneers whose names live on – indeed it is a proud boast that since the First World War the RAF has still never been without a Handley Page design. BAE Systems (which is just about all that we have left), somehow fails to have the same emotional frisson as the De Havillands, Sopwiths, AV Roes, and Hawkers of yesteryear. Handley Page Ltd was the first company in the United Kingdom to be registered for the construction of aeroplanes. After the success of the O/400, it sadly had a history of near misses, and too often failed to reach the very top of the pile; the Halifax against Avros Lancaster, the Victor being the only V-Bomber not to drop bombs in anger, and the Hampden against almost everything. The HP42 airliners – ‘as steady as the Rock of Gibralter and about as fast’ – were the mainstay of Imperial Airways in the 30s, but only ten were built, and they were very soon in competition with the much more advanced American DC2 and DC3. The V/1500 could have bombed Berlin, but the Armistice intervened, and it could have been the first aircraft to fly the Atlantic, but suffered from defective radiators, and was beaten to it by the Vimy. Handley Page for too long ignored tricycle undercarriage, and produced fairly bad airliners after World War 2, (I trooped out to Africa in one and it was horrible), and so on. But where the Company deserves immortality is for developing and patenting the slotted wing which was instrumental in making aircraft less likely to stall. This was ordered to be fitted to all British military aircraft from 1928 onwards, and has undoubtedly saved many lives; furthermore, the royalties earned kept the Company afloat during the lean inter-war years. I would have liked more personal details of Frederick himself, who comes through as an autocratic firebrand. The photographs are excellent, although one is wrongly captioned. Several typographical errors marred my rather pernickety enjoyment of an interesting and well written and researched book.