Amazon.com description: Product Description: Cyanide & Spirits is a fascinating humourously written view of early photography. You'll learn about spirit photography and prison portraits, back-street operators and the pros and cons of smoking in the darkroom. This book is a must for anyone who still believes that our photographic forefathers were nothing more than dour and solemn moralists, and will be appreciated by those who already know that what early photographers were really interested in is a lot different than what most contemporary historians would have us believe.