10369.d.7

Imprint: London: Lovell Reeve, 5, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. 1860.

Octavo, maroon cloth binding, measuring 198 x 130 mm, with decoration in gilt on upper and lower board, and title on upper board, set within a shield with the crest of the Prince of Wales and the motto 'Ich dien' beneath; edges gilt; x, [1], 187, [1], 16 pp. of publisher's advertisements. The complete work includes 20 stereoscopic views of Welsh scenery, mounted on light card, each with printed caption and credit reading 'Photographed by R. Fenton, and published by Lovell Reeve.' The British Library copy is defective, wanting plates 3, 8, 16 and 20, and with some images bound in out of sequence with the page numbers given in the contents list. Most of the photographs were also published in various issues of Lovell Reeve's 'The stereoscopic magazine' (Lovell Reeve, London, 1858-65, British Library shelfmark P.P.1931.k).In his introductory chapter, Davidson writes that, 'In the autumn of last year, the stereographs which form the illustrations of this volume were taken by Mr. Fenton at the same time, and frequently from the same point of view, as those larger pictures which attracted so much attention in the Photographic Society's Exhibition of 1859-9...' This suggests a date of 1859 for the photographs. However, it is clear from the exhibition history of the larger images, that the photographs were in fact taken in late 1857 (see Gordon Baldwin et al., 'All the mighty world. The photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852-1860' (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004), in particular, the chronology of Fenton's photographic career, pp. 231-239). Jephson had earlier collaborated with Lovell Reeve in the production of photographic illustrations for his 'Narrative of a walking tour in Brittany' (Lovell Reeve, London, 1859) and in the present work notes the importance of photography as an artistic tool: 'The boldest composer, and most conscientious copyist, must give way alike before the truth-telling photograph, which extends the boundaries of art indefinitely in one direction, whilst it corrects it aberrations in another...Photography, when used by an artist, can never be anything else than the handmaid of art; but to the draughtsman who neglects its suggestions, it will assuredly become a stern master and an infallible judge' (pp. 124-125).