(Title of the Thesis)*

“Drawn towards the lens”: Representations and Receptions of Photography in Britain, 1839 to 1853 by Julia Francesca Munro A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2008 ©Julia Francesca Munro 2008 AUTHOR'S DECLARATION I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract This dissertation studies the earliest years of photography‘s invention. Attention to the earliest conceptions of photography reveals a more complex and contested understanding of the nature and significance of photographic representation than has previously been attributed to the Victorians of the early nineteenth century, providing not only a more comprehensive picture of the history of the new technology, but also new insights into the interactions of Victorian photography and visual culture. The earliest representations and receptions of photography are gathered from inventors‘ reports, the first photographic texts produced for a specialist and general audience, and periodical articles that reveal the popular reception of photography by a non-specialist audience. The evolving representations and reception of photography are traced throughout the 1840s, as the medium grew increasingly popular, with a particular focus on photographic portraiture. Arguing that the earliest figurations of a new medium directly inform or ―premediate‖ how the medium is negotiated as it becomes established in the culture – that is, even though the technology and use of photography changed quite rapidly, the earliest perceptions of the medium powerfully influenced how it was used, perceived, and resisted – I examine the central anxieties raised by photography that persisted throughout the 1840s and early 1850s. Using Charles Dickens‘s Bleak House as a case study, I then turn to literature of the realist genre to assess how photography is imagined and contested in novelistic form. This not only provides a model with which to examine the incorporation of photographic allusions and themes into the realist novel, but also contributes new insights into the ways in which the issues of photography and other aspects of visuality intersected with the literary realist enterprise. iii Acknowledgements I must begin these acknowledgements by thanking my co-supervisors Drs. Katherine Acheson and Kate Lawson for their intelligence, patience, and kindness. I also wish to thank committee member Dr. Fraser Easton, who has provided helpful comments. I am grateful for the encouragement of my parents and grandparents, who always reminded me of the value and privilege of education. I acknowledge the help of my colleague and friend Cara DeHaan, who has provided daily support and empathy. I appreciate the funding provided over the years by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program, and the University of Waterloo. Last but first, I thank my husband Adam for his inspiration, encouragement, and friendship. iv Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to Adam and Emilia. v Table of Contents List of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... viii Introduction The Cultural Reception of Photography in Britain ........................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ―Nature painted by herself‖: Representations of Photography in 1839 ............................... 29 Chapter 2 ―A complete transcript of our outward man‖: Photographic Portraiture in 1846 ................ 76 Chapter 3 ‗The optical stranger‘: Photographic Anxieties in the 1840s and early 1850s .................. 120 Chapter 4 ―You have prepared me for my exposure‖: Photographic Allusions in Bleak House ...... 176 Conclusion Photography‘s Impact .................................................................................................... 237 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 249 vi List of Figures Figure 1 Daguerreotype, View of the Boulevard du Temple………………...………………....3 Figure 2 Illustration, Richard Beard‘s Studio…………..………………...………………..….97 Figure 3 Illustration, ―Sketches of Paris‖…..…………..………………...……………….….135 Figure 4 Illustration, Photographic Pleasures…………..………………...…………………171 vii List of Tables Table 1 Number of Photography References in Four Periodicals………………...………31 viii Introduction The Cultural Reception of Photography in Britain Fig. 1. Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mandé. View of the Boulevard du Temple. 1837. Stadtmuseum, Munich. A dissertation on photography is best begun with the contemplation of a photograph, in this instance, the remarkable ―View of the Boulevard du Temple‖ taken by one of photography‘s inventors, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, in 1837. While not the earliest photograph, nor the earliest photograph to contain the depiction of a human being, it has an aura typical of early photographs that Walter Benjamin describes as ―beautiful and unapproachable‖ (―A Small History‖ 257). I find it so insistently compelling for several reasons that aptly embody the unique aspects and problems of photography that this dissertation examines. A daguerreotype that is often commented on in the initial periodical reportage on the invention, it evoked amazement in earliest viewers‘ regarding the 1 unprecedented level of accuracy and realism that this new type of image seems to present; at the same time, its curiously ―deserted appearance‖1 signals the unreality of this mediated representation or its ―striking dissemblance to nature,‖ as an early article describes Daguerre‘s boulevard daguerreotypes (―Letter from J.R.‖ 435). As such, this image symbolizes the public‘s persistently oscillating reception of the photograph as both unmediated and mediated, a reception that would persist as the new medium developed in capabilities and popularity. The uncanny presence of the gentleman in the left foreground, a life-like figure amidst the empty stillness of the daguerreotype, also embodies several characteristic aspects of photography that this dissertation considers (among them the idea that a person photographed is never merely him or herself but rather becomes a figure or symbol). His presence suggests the incomparable immediacy of the photographic medium (what Roland Barthes describes as ―literally an emanation of the referent‖), an immediacy to which viewers responded with great desire, particularly as photographic portraiture began to be practiced (80). In capturing the individual as he existed in that moment (in high afternoon, during the approximately ten to fifteen minutes required to develop this early image),2 the photograph also suggests its status as memorial. This is an aspect of photography that was frequently discussed in the period and that Christian Metz has more recently summarized by stating that the photograph is a ―pure index [that] stubbornly point[s] to the print of what was, but no longer is‖ (83). Most compelling is the sense of voyeurism bound up in this 1 Due to lengthy exposure times, anything in motion could not be photographed. In this case, the individual in the left foreground who was having his shoes polished was captured because he was standing still. 2 image, shot from the level of the rooftops, in which the individual has been unknowingly captured. The power of the camera to take one‘s image, creating a seemingly perfect duplicate of the original subject that circulates and takes on a life of its own, is a central problem discussed from the moment of photography‘s invention, evoking an anxiety (regarding the original and the copy, the agency of the camera, and the circulation and lack of control over the photograph) that grew more pressing as photography developed into a mass medium by the early 1850s. These and other aspects of photography are examined in this dissertation. Project Scope This dissertation is a study of the representations and receptions of photography in Britain from 1839 to 1853. The objects of study include inventors‘ reports and correspondence, photographic and general interest periodicals, newspapers, and selected fictional texts. A systematic study of these texts was conducted in order to examine the representation of photography in its period of invention (in 1839)3 and to examine its 2 Exposure times varied depending on the time of day, the strength of the light, and the quality of the materials used in development; a ten to fifteen minute span was average (Leggat, ―The Daguerreotype,‖ n. pag.). 3 Photography was separately invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, in England, and Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, in France. Daguerre announced his invention on 6 January 1839, which prompted Talbot to announce his invention shortly afterwards on 31 January 1839. Daguerre‘s process produced unique (non-reproducible) images on highly polished copper plates whose mirror-like surface prompted their common moniker, ―the mirror of nature‖; called daguerreotypes, they were favoured for their incredible level of detail and were more popular

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