Bath: Monmouth Calotype 1989

The 1989 Monmouth Calotype Edition of WHF Talbot's Pencil of Nature. This eminent and important work, originally published in 1844 in six parts was republished in 1989 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the announcement of the invention of the daguerreotype by François Arago, January 1839.[1]

History

In June 1844 William Henry Fox Talbot published the first part of his book The Pencil of Nature and marked with it not only the beginning of photography on paper but created the first book in the world containing photographic illustrations with descriptive and didactic texts. The original idea came from the discoverer of the negative/positive process; his aim and intention being to demonstrate the ubiquitous properties of this new form of image-making. The book was originally published in six parts and was left to the individual subscribers to collate and bind the work into a single volume.

In order to produce The Pencil of Nature Talbot set the first photographic printing facility, the Reading Establishment under the direction of Nicolaas Henneman in January 1844. It was at this works that the images were printed. In effect this was the pilot project which was set up to show some of the possible future uses of photography.

Today, more than 160 years after, this is the rarest and most sought after book in photography. According to Beaumont Newhall only twenty or so complete copies are known to survive, making it rarer than the Gutenberg Bible.[2]

References
  1. First Photographs: William Henry Fox Talbot and the Birth of Photography, Michael Gray, Arthur Ollman and Carol McCusker, New York: 2002, Chronology, 134-35
  2. Pencil of Nature: Introduction to the DaCapo edition, 1969
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