The first edition of The Pencil of Nature was published in London by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans between June 1844 and April 1846, issued in six separate parts or fascicles. A single design appeared on the covers of all six fascicles. The original prints with which he illustrated it were produced in the Talbotype Establishment he set up at his estate, Lacock Abbey. The fascicle number and price were added by hand (in the upper left-hand and right-hand corners, respectively) as each number appeared. Some copies contain, laid in, a "Notice to the Reader," as follows: "The plates of the present work are impressed by the gency of Light alone, without any aid from the artist's pencil. They are the sun-pictures themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined, engravings in imitation." We offer here the complete text, with most of of the images, plus the original publisher's note promoting the project.

The Pencil of Nature is many things at once: a pioneering technical manual, a history of a radical invention, a practitioner's credo, a visionary's prophecy about the future of a new medium. Talbot's opening essay -- "Brief Historical Sketch of the Invention of the Art" -- and his other texts accompanying the individual plates restate and amplify the ideas he expressed in his 1839 treatise, "Some Account of the Art of Photogenic Drawing," available elsewhere in this Archive. -- A. D. C.

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