The original collection was published in 1937 and included 21 essays mainly written between 1928 and 1931. Four were added to the book in the 1939 edition, about Lord Fisher, Charles Stewart Parnell, Lord Baden-Powell and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1941 the essays on Boris Savinkov and Leon Trotsky were removed from editions published at that time, since they had been opponents of Joseph Stalin, who as leader of Russia was now officially an ally of Britain against Germany in World War II, and the article on Roosevelt was removed in 1942 when America also became officially an ally of Britain with Roosevelt as president. The Odhams edition of 1947 reinstated the three essays after the war.
