Young Jackie

Jacqueline Kennedy, nee Bouvier, was one of the most singularly beautiful women ever to grace the American scene, and this collection of excellent photographs is an affectionate photo album of her young years. The composure and obvious self-possession of the young Jackie shines through in every photo, where her gaze invariably meets the camera as equal, if not an entirely welcome interloper in her rarefied world of privilege. Jackie is one of those people whose adult features were pretty much perfectly formed as a child; her face would change little in the intervening years, lending an air of otherworldliness to these remarkable photographs. There is much presecience here of the woman she would become, and curiously little given away about the kind of child she was. Her beauty was as opaque as it was breathtaking, perhaps never more so than when she was young and did not yet know quite how striking she was. If you are a fan and admirer of Jackie, this book may be the very best of its kind on the market, and really belongs on your bookshelf. It's definitely in mine!