1 HILLSIDE CRESCENT
EDINBURGH
August 11 1863
Dear Sir,
The alteration you propose in the Preface<1> is very small, & I have made it at once; but as the precise words are often important, I shall be glad if you will kindly take the trouble to cast your eyes over the proof once again: – to which end I have desired the printer, in order to save time which now presses hard – to send you a copy of his corrected proof straight from his office by tonight’s post.
Mr Banks<2> tells me that he has sent you today a tinted proof of the Guajara-plate, & the whole stock of tinted plates to me:– so that now we seem very near the end; nevertheless do not hesitate to point out any further improvement you may think proper,
& I remain Dear Sir Yours very truly
C. Piazzi Smyth
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esqre F.R.S.
Millburn Tower
Hermiston
near Edinburgh
Notes:
1. This refers to the photoglyphic engraving plate that WHFT made for Smyth's report on his 1856 expedition to Teneriffe. The photogravure was published along with several albumen prints. As Smyth astutely observed in his introduction, “To the inventor alike of photography and photoglyphy, it must be comparatively indifferent by which of his two methods these unusual Teneriffe landscapes are introduced into this book, though to readers in a future century it may make a great difference; for the photoglyph must last as long as the paper it is printed on, but the photograph may go the way of some of those beautiful specimens exhibited last year at the International Exhibition, and which faded before the eyes of the nations then assembled.” Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomical Observations Made at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, vol. XII1, 1855-1859 (Edinburgh: Neill and Co., 1863). For a fuller discussion of Talbot’s experiments in this period, see Larry J. Schaaf, “Piazzi Smyth at Teneriffe: Part 2, Photography and the Disciples of Constable and Harding,” History of Photography, v. 5 no. 1, January 1981, pp. 27-50.
2. William Banks (b. 1809), engraver, copperplate printer and lithographer, Edinburgh.