My dear Henry
Will you dine with us Tomorrow (Sunday) at 7 ½ OC? You will find Christina Nicholl <1> here & we shall all be very glad to see you in this way sans façons <2>
Yrs affly
H G Mundy
39 Eaton Square
Saturday June 23d<4>
I cannot tell you how delighted I am about the Title Page as it will add so immensely to the value of the gracious Volumes.<4>
Notes:
1. Christiana Judy Nicholl (1827-1887), daughter of Dr John Nicholl (1797-1853), MP, and Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796-1874), WHFT's cousin.
2. Without fuss or ceremony.
3. Saturday, 24 June 1854 is the only date that makes sense in light of the 'gracious Volumes' (note 4) - see also Doc. No: 00011. WHFT was in London in connection with the patent trial.
4. The Executive Committee of the Great Exhibition of 1851 published Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851: Reports by the Juries. Four volumes, illustrated by original photographic prints from negatives by Hugh Owen and Claude Marie Ferrier. In the copies given to WHFT, a dedicatory sheet was inserted (most likely printed up by him): 'This Work, on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Illustrated with Photographic Plates, being One of Fifteen Copies Given by the Royal Commissioners to H.F. Talbot, Esq. of Lacock Abbey, as The Inventor of this Branch of the Photographic Art, was by him presented to _____'. This publication caused WHFT considerable consternation at the time, for he felt that the Commissioners had stealthily and unfairly taken the job of printing the plates away from Nicolaas Henneman. For a summary of this complex situation, see Nancy B Keeler, 'Illustrating the "Reports by the Juries" of the Great Exhibition of 1851; Talbot, Henneman, and Their Failed Commission,' History of Photography, v. 6 no. 3, July 1982, pp. 257-272.