It has taken four years to collect, document and publish the extensive photography collection by Victorian Richard Ellis. The first volume documenting the extensive collection of the Englishman’s photographic works of Malta in Victorian and Edwardian times was launched in December 2007.

But the process is an ongoing one, with the latest in the series of Richard Ellis publications hitting the shelves this winter.

The last publication has the same format as previous volumes but varies in content from the first three.

The Richard Ellis Photography Collection, Malta & Gozo Volume IV covers a number of topics as opposed to a specific area of Malta.

It depicts the island on the threshold of modernity but still an agriculture-based society, especially in the regions away from the central harbour area.

A number of well known experts and contributors have analysed photographs from the photographer’s archives.

Commenting on these wonderful images from the past, Katya Stroud, Joseph Attard Tabone, Paul P. Borg and Kenneth Zammit Tabona give readers their comments and conclusions, turning simple photographs into individual studies and narratives of the different aspects the island’s way of life.

Book editor Ian Ellis, the photographer’s great grandson, has consented to share a distilled selection with the public.

Along with picture researcher and photo editor, Patrick J. Fenech, they have once again pieced together an extraordinary volume with its sequel, Malta & Gozo Volume V, which will dwell on the influence of modernism captured by this master of photography, Richard Ellis.