Photography and the Nineteenth
Century Book

ESTELLE JUSSIM
 

'HF.N Sir Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of paper
photography, laboriously published The Pencil of
Nature in six parts between 1844 and 1846, he
puffed it as "the first photographically-illustrated book." In a
very special sense, this was true. Although Excursions daguer-
riennes (1841-42) had contained two photo-etchings and several
plates copied lithographically after the Talbotypc's rival process,
and 1843 had witnessed Frederick Catherwood's remarkable da-
guerreotvpe-based illustrations in Incidents in Yucatan, Talbot's
boast was justified. The miraculous Pencil of Nature was indeed
rhe first major book of which multiple copies were illustrated by
mounted or inserted positive photographic paper prints produced
directly from paper negatives.

Well might Talbot insist that the portraits and architectural
studies in his incunabulum of photography were "the sun pictures
themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined, engravings
in imitation." For this was the main advantage by which Talbot
thought to garner victory over Daguerre, whose spectacular metal
plates had to undergo a difficult conversion into one of the older
graphic arts in order to be replicated for publishing purposes.
Talbot was apparently convinced that his invention could replace
all the other graphic processes, supplant the need for engravings,
and generally transform the illustration of books.

Quite literally and abruptly—as Talbot saw it—with the appear¬
ance of The Pencil of Nature, the myriad graphic artists who had
perfected the illusionistic marvels of mezzotint, aquatint, copper
and steel engraving, lithography, and color woodcuts all stood in

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