Few original copies of "The Pencil of Nature" remain, but the book is significant inasmuch as it was the first ever to be published with photographs. Well, almost the first; that distinction is owned by Anna Atkins, except that her pictures were photograms rather than photographs.
Looking at Talbot's book, one cannot help but feel that it is an odd collection of pictures, because there does not seem to be a theme running though the book. It is a somewhat motley collection. We see a picture of the boulevards in Paris, a shot of Queens College, Oxford, and several pictures of Lacock Abbey, where Fox Talbot worked. There's a copy of a drawing, a picture of Westminster Abbey, and one of a part of Queens College, Oxford. No clear theme, just a collection of pictures, with a strange justification for them in the script! The book is a mix of technical information, guide book, a facinating collection of irrelevant details, a personal family record - probably a nightmare for librarians whose task it is to catalogue books according to subject!
Perhaps this highlights a problem that the earliest photographers had. Atkin's book had a clear purpose. But pictures taken at this time seem to show that one is playing around with the medium to find out what its possibilities are (and that's a perfectly legitimate act) without being quite sure where they were going. Whereas one "made" art, photographs were a form of record. Indeed, they were "impressed by nature's hand", or "sun pictures". Photographs were "taken" or "obtained" as if they were natural specimens. It was regarded as a superb mechanical process, yes, but purely mechanical.
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