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Document number: 7723
Date: Mon 01 Nov 1858
Harold White: 1 Nov 1858
Postmark: 1 Nov 1858
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: LLEWELYN Emma Thomasina, née Talbot
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA58-91
Last updated: 27th January 2015

30 Eastbourne Terrace – <1>
Monday

My dear Henry

We are all very much delighted with your specimens of photoglyphic engraving, but long for some, from views of Lacock! which would be more original than Paris or even the great Bell of Moscow <2> – Be sure I shall soon pick out something, when I return home <3> which I shall submit to you to know if it is worth waxing & experimenting upon! or else, send you a glass negative or positive? <4> for I am a little mystified as to which you prefer to operate upon. If you get good steel plates, as you say, I hope you will order some also for me – I suppose they will have to be kept in the kitchen! by way of counteracting our damp sea air, until used – for tho’ we do not have our walls run down like those at Penrice, <5> where we used to write our names in the dew on foggy days, on the backstaircase yet we have so many trees &c round us, that I must be careful of polished steel! We have a very nice printing press but I must not go too fast! but make my dies first! Hitherto I have been sole printer (with nitrate of silver) <6> for Mr Llewelyn <7> & I do not think he wants enough, to require assistance from Henneman <8> tho’ I have pretty hard work sometimes, too. – Have you made those you have so kindly sent me, without any assistance whatever? I have a pleasant recollection of the days when my sister Jane <9> used to attempt etching upon copperplates & lithographic drawing but how inferior are these, to photographic results!

I am delighted to think we shall have such an interesting amusement as your new art, to add to our occupations –

in haste your affte cousin
E. Llewelyn

[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham


Notes:

1. London.

2. WHFT was obtaining photographic positives from many sources for use in his photoglyphic engraving experiments - the one of the Great Bell of Moscow may have been supplied by Charles Piazzi Smyth. More commonly met with are the photoglyphic engravings that WHFT made to accompany George Lumley's articles on the subject, and included ‘Bridge over the Moldau, Prague’; ‘Palace of the Duc de Montpensier, Seville’; ‘The New Louvre, Paris’; ‘The Gate of the Cathedral of San Gregorio, Valladolid’; and ‘The Institute of France’. See ‘Description of Mr Fox Talbot’s New Process of Photoglyphic Engraving’, Photographic News, v. 1 no. 7, 22 October 1858, pp. 73–75; and v. 1 no. 10, 12 November 1858, pp. 114–115.

3. Penllergaer, Glamorgan, 5 mi E of Loughor: home of the Llewelyn family.

4. Photoglyphic engraving plates were made from a photographic positive, sometimes on paper but more reliably on glass.

5. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.

6. Making photographic prints from the photographic negatives using WHFT's original photogenic drawing paper.

7. John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), Welsh photographer, JP & High Sheriff.

8. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer. Henneman’s last photographic printing business, Monument House, Kensal Green, had closed 1856, and in the autumn of 1858 he seems to have asked WHFT for help to get employment. [See Doc. No: 07780].

9. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).

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