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DOVER PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS NEw YoRK INT HET HIRTIBEeSre,n ice Abbott. (22967-X) $4.50 PHOTOGRAPHSO F THEO LD CLOSEASN D STREETS OF GLASGOW, 1868/1877 , (23442-8) $5.00 Thomas Annan. PHOTOGRAPHVIIECW S OF SHERMANC'ASMP AIGN, George N. Barnard. (23445-2) $4.00 Ow NEW YoRK INE ARLPYH OTOGRAPHS, 1853-1901, Mary Black. (22907-6) $6.95 NEw YoRKS TREEKTm s, Children's Aid Society. (23692-7) $4.50 ALVILNA NGDOCNo BURNP,HO TOGRAPHER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Alvin Lang (23685-4) $6.00 don Coburn. CRUICKSHANPKH'OsT OGRAOPFH BSIR DS OF AMERICAAl,la n D. Cruickshank. (23497-5) $6.00 GREENWICH VILLAA GPEH:O TOGRAPHIrC JIDEE,d mund T. Delaney and (23114-j) $3.00 Charles Lockwood. PHOTO-SEECSSIORNo,be rt Doty. (23588-2) $5.00 EARLYA MERICAGNR AVESTOANRET, Francis Y. Duval and Ivan B. Rigby. (23689-7) $6.00 GREAT NEWS PHOTOASN DT HE STORIBEESH INTDH EMJ,o hn Faber. (23667-6) $5.00 HISTOROFY P HOTOGRAPHY, Josef Maria Eder. (23586-6) $10.00 SANF RANCISCIONT HE 1850s, G.R. Fardon. (23459-2) $3.00 NEw YORKIN THE FORTIES, Andreas Feininger. (23585-8) $6.00 STONAEN DM AN:A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION, Andreas Feininger. (23756-7) $5.50 UNSEENNE W YORK, Mark Feldstein. (20166-X) $4.00 PHOTOGRAPHISCK ETCHBOOOF KTH E CIVIL w AR,A lexander Gardner. (22731-6) $6.00 LEWICSA RROLPLH,OT OGRAPHER, Helmut Gernsheim. (22327-2) $3.50 L.J.MD.A GUERER, Helmut Gernsheim and Alison Gernsheim. (22290-X) $4.00 A NEW ENGLANTDO WN INE ARLPYH OTOGRAPHESd,m und¥. Gillon, Jr. (ed.). (23286-7) $5.00 MEN ATW ORK,L ewis W. Hine. (23475-4) $3.00 PEOPLAEN DC ROWDSA: P HOTOGRAPHAILCBU M FOR ARTISTS ANDD ESIGNF.RS, Jim Kalett. (23696-X) $5.00 CONEYI SLANBDE ACPHE OPLHEa,rr y Lapow. (23614-5) $5.00 NEW YoRK CnY:A PHOTOGRAPHIPCOR TRAIT, Victor Laredo. (22852-5) $4.00 INRTODUCTIOTON PHOTOGRAPHIPCR INCIPLLeEwSis, L armore. (21385-4) $3.00 NEW YORKI NT HE SIXTIES; PHOTBOGY RAKPLHAUSS LEHNARTZ, Klaus Leh- (23674-9) $5.00 nartz. Ow PHILADELPIHNEI AAR LYPH OTOGRAPHS, 1839-1914, Robert F. Looney (23345-6) $6.00 (ed.). CHILDROEFN T HEP ASITN P HOTOGRAPHIC PORTARlAisIonT SM,a ger (ed.). (23697-8) $4.00 (continued on inside back cover) JOSEF MARIA EDER HISTORYO F PHOTOGRAPHY By JOSEF MARIA EDER TRANSLATED BY EDWARD EPSTEAN HON. F. R. P. S. DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. NEW YORK Copyright1 94©5 byC olumbiUan iversPirteys s. Copyright re©n ewe1d9 72 by ColumbiUan i versiPtrye ss. Allr ightrse serveudn derP an Americaann d InternatiCoonpaylr igChotn ventions. Publisheidn Canadab y GeneralP ublishing Company,L td.,30 LesmilRlo ad,D on Mills, TorontoO,n tario. Publishiendt heU nitecKli ngdomb y Constable and Company, 1L0t dO.r,a ngeS treetL,o ndon WC2H 7EG. ThisD overe ditiofinr,s tp ublishiend 1978, is an unabridgaendd u nalterreedp ublicaotfit ohne worko rigailnlpyu blishbeyd C olumbiUan iversity PressN,. Y.,i n1 945. The presenetd itioinsp ub lishebdy speciaalr rangemenwti th Columbia UniversiPtrye ss. International Standard Book Number: 0-486-23586-6 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-88114 Manufacturiendt heU niteSdt ateosf A merica DoverP ublicatiIonncs., 180 VarickS treet New YorkN,. Y .1 0014 ( 1905) Preface to the Third Edition WHAT 1s PROBABLY the earliest authoritative source of the history of our knowledge and appreciation of the physics of light and its action reaches us through Priestley in his History and Present State of Dis coveries Relating to Vision, Light and Colours ( 1772; German edition, 1775). In its pages we find some scant observations on the chemical action of light. Ebermaier's Ve rsuch einer Geschichte des Lichtes und dessen Einfiuss auf den menschl ichen Korper ( 1799), as well as Horn's Ober die Wirkungen des Lichtes auf den lebenden menschlichen Korper mit Ausnahme des Seh ens ( 1 799), contains many historical notes which, however, are chiefly of interest to students of physiology. Concerning other early theories of light in general, as well as regard ing its chemical action, much of importance may be found in Johann Carl Fischer's extensive work Geschichte der Physik ( 1801-6, 8 vols.), upon which I have drawn largely in the preparation of the present work. Gmelin's Geschichte der Chemie (1799) and Fischer's Physikalisches Wo rterbuch ( 1801-2 5, 9 vols.) are valuable works of the same char acter. The prize essays of Link and Heinrich, 0 her die Na tur des Lichtes ( 1 808), deservedly distinguished by the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, have furnished very excellent and valuable contribu tions, not only giving their own personal observations but also re porting with painstaking care the earlier contributions on this subject. This work was included, almost in its entirety, in Landgrebe's excellent collected works 0 her das Licht ( 1 8 34). Landgrebe brought to us, in a general way, the same early sources and added other enlarged literary contributions up to 1833, and gave us a detailed index containing nu merous early references and notes on the subject. A valuable contribu tion to the literature of photochemistry is offered in G. Suckow's Com mentatio physica de lucis effectibus chemicis (Jena, 1828), which bears the motto "nihil luce obscurius" (nothing is darker than light) and is dedicated to Dobereiner.This work was awarded a prize by the Univer sity of Jena. Later than Suckow we have independent essays on the early sources by J. Fiedler, whose Latin dissertation De lucis effe ctibus che micis in corpora anorganica ( 183 5) is edited with careful skill worthy of the highest commendation. This author relies much more on Priestley, in his History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light v1 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (1905) and Colours (1772; German ed., 1775), than on those who preceded him, and in some parts of his historical treatment far excels his predeces sors. Another important contribution to the study of photochemistry in the nineteenth century is Karsten's "Literaturbericht der Photoche mie," which appeared in the Fortschritten der Physik pro 1845. At this point I feel compelled to remark that the existing textbooks were quite inadequate and of little service in my researches among the early sources. Thus the celebrated works of Hunt, Researches on Light (1844), and Becquerel's La Lumiere offer little of value in their historical notes, while W. J. Harrison's History of Photography ( 1888) is concerned in a superficial way with the years preced ing Daguerre, while it is well known that Fouque's history, La V erite sur !'invention de la photographie ( 1867) confines itself entirely to the inventions of Niepce. Facing this deficiency of material for the formation of the ground work for my Geschichte der Photochemie, I was compelled to search through book after book and innumerable periodical publications, cov ering subjects with the oddest titles, in order to find the existing refer ences to photochemical subjects. I published the first fragment of my researches into the historical source of information in the Photograph ische Korrespondenz ( 1881). This was followed, in 1 890, by the first edition of my Geschichte der Photochemie, which appeared as the first part of my complete and specialized Handbuch der Photographie, presenting for the first time these studies as a connected and coherent unit. With this work I may safely claim to have traced the history of photography in the pre-Daguerre period. How much more complete my studies of the historical sources of this period are than those of my predecessors is proved by a simple comparison. It may be noted here that all later writers on the history of photography base their works on my studies of the sources of information. Major General J. Waterhouse (London, 1901-3), pursued a series of further studies of these sources, following my basic publication. These included: "Notes on the Early History of the Camera Obscura" (Photographic Journal, Vol. XXV, No. 9); "Notes on Early Tele Dioptric Lens-Systems and the Genesis of Telephotography" (Photo graphic Journal, Vol. XXVI, No. 1) ;"Historical Notes on Early Photo graphic Optics" (Journal of the Camera Club, September, 1902); and "The History of the Development of Photography with the Salts of PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (1905) vu Silver" (Photographic Journal, Vol. XLIII, June, l 903), all of which embody extremely serious and exact investigations. There were others who made use of my studies of historical sources, but without mentioning whence their information was derived. Writ ing at second-hand in many other cases, without a fundamental knowl edge of the subject, they mixed facts and falsehoods without discrimina tion or judgment, as I proved in the Photographische Korrespondenz (1891, pp. 148, 254). I think it best not to concern myself any further with them. On the other hand, the books of W. Jerome Harrison, A History of Photography (Bradford, 1888), and John Werge, The Evo lution of Photography (London, l 890)' are well-written and conscien tious efforts, at least as far as concerns the participation of England and America in the invention of photography in the nineteenth century. Interestingly written, but limited to a very small group of the inventors of photography, is the work of R. Colson, Memoires originaux des createurs de la photographie (Paris, l 898). In this work only the biog raphies and experiments of Joseph Nicephore Niepce, Daguerre, Bayard, Talbot, Niepce de Saint-Victor, and Poitevin are dealt with in considerable detail, and no mention is made of other inventors. It is unfortunate that the share of German and Austrian inventors in the development of photography seems to have been largely unknown to these English and French historians. Therefore, in this present work I have given special attention to the development of the history of photography from an international viewpoint, especially later than Daguerre, having first devoted myself to a minute study of the sources of information in order to obtain the greatest objectivity in the con ception and writing of my Geschichte der Photographie. There were three stages in the development of my Geschichte der Photograpbie. The first was the period to the beginning of the eight eenth century; this fragment, as was mentioned above, was published in l 88 r. In l 890 I published (see above) the development of photo chemistry up to Daguerre and Niepce. Then followed the first authori tative and exhaustive treatment of the general field of photography, with accurate references to the literature and historical sources, in my Ausfilhrliches Handbuch der Photographie, which served as the groundwork for my history of the modern photographic processes. With this material in hand, I was enabled for the first time to attempt, in this (third) edition of my history, to present the history of the in- vm PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (1905) vention of photography up to the end of the nineteenth century. I undertook also to include in this work careful reproductions of many incunabula and portraits of importance to the history of pho tography. The originals of most of these are fast disappearing and have become very rare and difficult to obtain. They can now be found in only a few places, particularly in Paris, London, and Vienna. The collections of the Graphische Lehr-und Versuchsanstalt in Vien na, the Photographische Gesellschaft, and the Technical Institute in Vienna contain highly valuable material, in part collected since I 8 3 9, most of which has not yet been sufficiently studied and is quite un known in circles outside these institutions. I am greatly obliged to the president of the Paris Photographic Society, the Paris Photo Club, the London Photographic Society, Major General J. Water house and Mr. George E. Brown, of London, Professor Vidal, M. J. Demaria, and M. Davanne, of Paris, and Herr Braun, of Domach, as well as to many other respected colleagues who have assisted me and expedited my historical researches and investigations in a most appreciative way. Although I believe my Geschichte der Photographie to be the most complete work of its kind thus far attempted, I realize that it cannot be entirely exhaustive, since the space allotted to me does not suffice for a broader treatment. The pursuit of too-minute detail, however, would doubtless have affected my plan of presenting a general view such as I have striven for in the treatment of the whole subject. THE AUTHOR Vienna March, 1905