A fascinating, illustrated history of Alexander Graham Bell's most famous invention.

From its demonstration to Queen Victoria in 1878, through the Bakelite models of the 1920s and '30s to the chic plastic designs of the 1970s and '80s, Andrew Emmerson traces the evolution of the humble telephone over more than an a century.

Magneto, skeleton and candlestick telephones accompany the National Telephone Company, telephone kiosks and railway platform telephones.