Originally published as a serial between 1844 and 1846, The Pencil of Nature was the first book to be illustrated entirely with photographs. Early enthusiast William Henry Fox Talbot hoped to spur public interest in photography but was forced to cease publication after just six installments. In its time, the serial was not a commercial success; however, more than 165 years later, it is recognized as a major contribution to the history of photography. Indeed, it has been said that the importance of this book is comparable to that of the Gutenberg Bible in the history of printing. In 1840 Fox Talbot invented the Calotype process—the precursor to film cameras—transforming everyday subjects into works of art. His twenty-four resulting prints, which include architectural studies, local landscapes, still lifes, close-ups, and even a carefully executed portrait, remain strikingly modern and quietly beautiful. The Pencil of Nature has been published in several different incarnations, yet this edition is the first to have been reproduced from the original plates held in England’s National Media Museum, each page of the original work published here as Fox Talbot had intended. A 44-page illustrated introduction by Colin Harding gives shape to Fox Talbot’s life and times, how he became interested in the notion of a “photogenic drawing” process, how he invented the Calotype, and how he conceived of The Pencil of Nature—the means by which he could show the art of photography to the world for the first time in a book. This is an essential volume for historians, photographers, and anyone interested in the development of photography.

Product Description: The little work now presented to the Public is the first attempt to publish a series of plates or pictures wholly executed by the new art of Photogenic Drawing, without any aid whatever from the artist's pencil. The term “Photography” is now so well known, that an explanation of it is perhaps superfluous; yet, as some persons may still be unacquainted with the art, even by name, its discovery being still of very recent date, a few words may be looked for of general explanation...read more

Product Description: First Photographs is an extraordinary view into the origins of photography. This landmark monograph—the only book on Talbot to be authored by the Fox Talbot museum’s curator—includes many never-before-published images of landscapes, architectural studies, and portraits from Talbot’s personal archive and selections from his detailed research notebooks made during the 1830s and 1840s and currently housed at Lacock Abbey in Chippenham, England...read more

Product Description: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre may be the official father of photography, but William Henry Fox Talbot, Cambridge graduate, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and amateur archeologist, is the true father of modern photography. In 1840, Talbot invented the positive-negative process that permits endless reproductions, the same technique still used today...read more

Product Description: This is a wonderful publication fill with stunning photographs & articles.

Product Description: Published to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Britain's celebrated inventor of photography, Specimens and Marvels illuminates the mid-nineteenth-century cultural environment in which Talbot's vision for photography emerged--a vision that would permanently alter how human beings view themselves and the world...read more

(view table of contents)

Product Description: This is the first publication of the two most important notebooks created by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), the inventor of negative/positive photography. Notebooks P and Q span the period from the first public announcement of photography in 1839 through the 1843 plateau of Talbot's researches...read more