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Document number: 1763
Date: 14 Jun 1877
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON Co
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 18th June 2013

[printed letterhead:]
Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington,
English, Foreign, American, and Colonial Booksellers and Publishers.
Commissions executed in all matters connected with International Copyright, both at Home and Abroad.

THE PUBLISHER’S CIRCULAR,
AND GENERAL RECORD OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN LITERATURE,
Is published by SAMPSON LOW and CO. on the 1st and 15th of each
Month. It gives a transcript of the Title-page of every Work
published in Great Britain, and every Work of interest
published abroad. 8s. per annum,
including postage.

“Crown Buildings,”
188, Fleet Street,
London, E.C.,

June 14th 1877

H. Fox Talbot Esq
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham

Dear Sir,

By book post we send you a copy of the first Edition of Tissandier’s book <1> (It will be corrected in many places in the new Edition) in order that you may see if what he says in reference to your discoveries is correct or not. We also send you a rough uncorrected proof of that part of the new matter added by the Editor in which he refers to you. We shall feel much obliged if you will kindly alter & add anything you please. Also, as we mentioned before, we shall be very pleased to add to the work any account you may like to give us of your photographic researches & Experiments in general.

We think we are correct in saying that this work contains the most complete account of the History of photography in existence and on that account, & as a book of reference, it has a value about that of the ordinary ‘Manual’. We are sure that any account from your pen will give the book an additional value in the eyes of all English Photographers. The second Edition will have specimen prints by

The Woodbury-type <2> Process
Albert-type <3>
Licht-drück
Permanent Ink
Zinc Plate

which we think will be interesting as denoting the developt of the art in various directions

We are, Sir Yours faithfully
Sampson Low, Marston & Co
per R.B.M


Notes:

1. WHFT supplied a manuscript and two original photoglyphic engravings for inclusion in John Thomson, editor, A History and Handbook of Photography, Translated from the French of Gaston Tissandier, second and revised edition, with an Appendix by the Late Henry Fox Talbot (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1878). A page of the original manuscript is reproduced in Larry J Schaaf, Sun Pictures Catalogue Twelve: Talbot and Photogravure (New York: Hans P. Kraus, Jr, 1987), appendix. pp. 357–367.

2. A photomechanical process invented by Walter Bentley Woodbury (1834–1885). Photographically sensitised gelatin was exposed and then developed in water, where the amount of light exposure controlled the amount of swelling. The three-dimensional swollen gelatin image was then placed in a press and squeezed into a lead plate. That plate could then be used to receive a special ink, transferring the image to a paper; the density of tone was controlled by the depth of the ink.

3. Joseph Albert of Munich worked on the collotype process and Lichtdrück. A bichromated gelatin sheet was exposed under the photographic image. Light caused the bichromate to tan the gelatin, affecting its ability to absorb water. The dampened surface was then inked with a greasy ink, which adhered most strongly to those areas impervious to water.

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