The Pencil of Nature

The Pencil of Nature is an 1844 book by William Henry Fox Talbot. It is notable for being the first commercially published book to be illustrated with photographs.^[1][2]

Published by Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans in six fascicles between 1844 and 1846, the book detailed Talbot's development of the calotype photographic process and included 24 calotype prints, each one pasted in by hand, illustrating some of the possible applications of the new technology. It is regarded as an important and influential work in the history of photography and was described by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as "a milestone in the art of the book greater than any since Gutenberg's invention of moveable type."^[3]

At the time of The Pencil of Nature's publication, photography was still an unfamiliar concept for most people—The Athenaeum, a contemporary British magazine, described Talbot's work as "modern necromancy"^[4]—and the book was the first opportunity for the general public to see what photographs looked like.^[5][6] To avoid confusion, Talbot inserted the following notice into the book:

The plates of the present work are impressed by the agency of Light alone, without any aid whatever from the artist's pencil. They are the sun-pictures themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined, engravings in imitation.

The cover page of The Pencil of Nature eclectically clashed the Baroque, Celtic, and Medieval styles, as was characteristic of the Victorian era.^[7] Its symmetrical design, letterforms, and intricate carpet pages are similar to and a pastiche of the Book of Kells.^{[citation needed]}

The Pencil of Nature was published and sold one section at a time, without any binding. As with many books of the time, purchasers were expected to have it bound themselves once all the installments had been released. Talbot planned a large number of installments; however, the book was not a commercial success and he was forced to terminate the project after completing only six.^{[citation needed]}