Review

Author(s): Philip J. Weimerskirch

Review by: Philip J. Weimerskirch
Source: The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 70, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp.
273-275
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40039752
Accessed: 30-06-2015 15:52 UTC

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REVIEWS

273

to the sentimentalaspectsof the story,whereasthe (less common) male readerwill

considerthese no more than "foolish twaddling"(p. 129). Classis an even more
fundamentalconcept underlyingBrantlinger'sdiscussionof criminalityand social
disorder.In both JaneEyreand Wuthering
Heights,for example, the Bronte sisters
set forth their image of the "right"reading:"a secularliteracythat has the power
to reshapethe 'brutish'and dangerousworkingclassafterthe 'respectablydressed,'
well-spokenand nonviolentimage of the bourgeoisie" (p. 120).
However,throughoutthissophisticatedand thought-provokinganalysisof British
literature,one dimensionis underexploited:that of age. Anxietiesaboutmassliteracy revolvedespeciallyaround the issue of youth reading, as culturalauthorities
debatedthe need to attractthe youngto readingwhileprotectingthem fromharm.
The late nineteenth centurysawthe rise of a commerciallysuccessfulgenre of fiction targetedspecificallyat children,yet amonghis examplesof nineteenth-century
fictionBrantlingerfailsto includebookswrittenfor children.AndAmericansmight
ask a furtherquestion about the dimension of race. The quintessentialAmerican
bestsellerof the nineteenth centurywasHarrietBeecherStowe'sUncleTom'sCabin.
How did Stowe representher readerswithin the text of her novel, readerswho
must have includedAfricanAmericansand the white workingclass,as well as the
abolitionistwhite middle classtowardwhom Stoweostensiblydirectedher writing?
Brantlinger'stheme is linked to the everpresenttopic of censorshipand its close
cousin, culturalelitism.While culturalpessimists"believethat they are defending
both the onlycorrectculturalstandardsand the masseswho,whetherliterate,semiliterate,or illiterate,sorelyneed theirguidance,"he pointsout that "alltheyusually
expressis outrightcontemptand fear of the masses- that is, of all of us, including
themselves"(p. 211). As the debate about providingpopularmaterials- whatever
theirformat- continuesto exert its influenceon publiclibrarycollectingpractices,
Brantlinger'sanalysisprovidesa much needed- and readable- historicalcontext
and social comment.
Christine Pawley, Centerfor the Historyof Print Culturein ModernAmerica
Madison, Wisconsin

Scenesin a Library:Reading the Photographin the Book, 1843-1875. By Carol Arm-

strong. Cambridge,Mass.:MIT Press, 1998. Pp. xxiv+511. $45.00. ISBN 0-26201169-7.

Photographywas invented more or less simultaneouslyby LouisJacques Mande

Daguerrein Franceand WilliamHenry Fox Talbot in England,but their photographswerequitedifferent.The daguerreotypewasa copperplatecoveredwithfine
dropletsof mercury;Talbot's calotypewas a piece of paper embedded with silver
salts.Both of these typesof photographswere used for illustratingbooks, but because the daguerreotypeplate had to be bitten with acid and then printed as an
etching,it wasmuch more cumbersometo use and, therefore,much lessfrequently
used for this purpose.Calotypes,however,could easilybe pasted into books, and
they were used extensivelyfor illustratingbooks in Britainbeginning in 1840.
Not a greatdeal has been publishedon earlyphotographicallyillustratedbooks,
although in 1980 the Grolier Club published a seminal exhibition catalog, The
TruthfulLens,compiled by Lucien Goldschmidtand WestonJ. Naef, and Helmut
Gernsheimproducedan excellent bibliographicalwork,IncunabulaofBritishPhoto-

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274

THE LIBRARYQUARTERLY

(Londonand Berkeley:ScolarPress,1984). Gernsheim'sbook congraphicLiterature

tainsa "Bibliographyof bookspublishedin GreatBritainand illustratedwithoriginal photographs"that lists and describes619 books publishedbetween 1840 and
1875. CarolArmstrong,an art historianwith a Ph.D. from Princeton,has written
whatis by far the mostvoluminousbook everpublishedon Britishbooksillustrated
withoriginalphotographs.It is not a generalsurvey,however,but, rather,a detailed
and well-illustratedexegesis of five books with briefercommentson manyothers.
Armstronganalyzesthese books in the light of the writingsof the Frenchcritic
and semiologistRoland Barthes,especiallyhis Mythologies
and Cameralucida,and
of the positivistphilosopherAugusteComte.Armstronggrappleswith notions of
the essence of a photograph,how photographsand texts are interrelatedin the
photographicallyillustratedbook, how the Victoriansperceivedthese books, and
how one should perceivethem today.Armstronggivesfairlylengthyexplanations
of the ideas of Barthesand Comte,and her analysisis largelya philosophicalone.
Unfortunately,she writes in the verbose and sometimes rather opaque style of
Barthesand other proponentsof the New Criticism.
Armstrongseems to have done most of her researchin Princeton'sFirestone
Library,the SpencerCollectionof the New YorkPublicLibrary,the libraryof the
GettyMuseum,and the BritishLibrary.Specialcollectionslibrariansand preservation specialistswill be interestedin some remarksin the introduction,whereArmstrongwrites,"Now,sittingin mustylibraries,hushedrarebook collections,or spotless studyrooms,lookingbackthroughold bookswithphotographspastedin them,
we frequentlyfind those photographsspotted,stained,and faded with age, having
lived lives like other naturalthings and on their way,dust to dust, to the grave,if
not alreadyin it" (p. 16). In a footnote to this passageshe states,"So much is this
the case that originalcopies of the firstphotographicallyillustratedbooks, such as
the New YorkPublicLibrary'sThePencilof Nature,are so fragileand so nearlydestroyedby the passageof time that, quite paradoxically,to preservethem they are
kept mummifiedand entombedin the inner sanctumof the library,not to be handled, viewed,or read by readersever again. Nearlyall the plates of other copies,
suchas thatin the GraphicArtscollectionof PrincetonUniversityLibrary,arefaded
almostbeyondvisibility"(p. 441, n.31).
The photographicallyillustratedbooks that Armstronganalyzesat some length
are CharlesOttleyGroom-Napier'sTheBookof Natureand theBookof Man (1870);
WilliamHenryFoxTalbot'sThePencilofNature(1844-46) ;AnnaAtkins'Photographs
and Observed
ofBritishAlgae (1843-54) ; Francis Frith's Egyptand PalestinePhotographed
(1858-59); and Julia Margaret Cameron's Illustrationsto AlfredLordTennyson'sIdylls

of theKing(1874). Armstrongtook her title from the eighth plate in Talbot's The
PencilofNature,a.photographof two shelvesof books in LacockAbbey.The ninth
plate in this book is titled "Fac-Simileof an Old PrintedPage." It is from a book
in Talbot'slibrary,and in her descriptionof it Armstrongsays,"of all Talbot'splates
it is the mostassertiveof its statusas a printedpage.At the sametimeit demonstrates
its difference from the larger context of printed pages into which it is inserted:
hand-letteredin Norman French calligraphythat is evidentlydifferentfrom the
letterpressof The Pencil of Nature,and glued ratherthan sewnin, it illustratesits
own intrusioninto the printedspaceof the book" (p. 151). The typographyof the
page from the old book is certainlydifferentfrom that of ThePencilof Nature,but
it is definitelynot a specimen of calligraphy.Armstrongevidentlymisunderstood
Talbot'sdescriptionof this page, which begins, "takenfrom a black-lettervolume
in the Author'slibrary,containingthe statutesof Richardthe Second, writtenin
NormanFrench."

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REVIEWS

275

Armstrong'sthirdchapteris devotedmainlyto two albumsof cyanotypesof seaweed compiledbyAnnaAtkinsbetween1843and 1854,thoughit also discussesher
book on ferns and books on similarsubjectsby severalother authors.This chapter
containsa particularlylargenumberof illustrations.There are thirty-onefull-page
platesof seaweed,twoof whichare in color (shadesof blue, as theyare cyanotypes);
four full-pageplates of title pages and table-of-contentspages from the seaweed
albums;and severalplatesfrom other books.The twoillustrationsin color are also
reproducedin blackand white.The large numberof seaweedplatesseems almost
too much of a good thing.
The book has no bibliography,but there are sixty-fourpages of notes at the end
of the volume.Armstronghas read widely,though I did not find any mention of
Helmut Gernsheim'sbibliography.
In her notes Armstrongcalls Elmer Adler, the man who formed Princeton's
graphicartscollection,a "nineteenth-centuryprinter."Adler taughtat Princeton
from 1940 until 1952,and he wasnot a printer.She also saysthat FredericEugene
Ives,the inventorof the halftone process,lived in Chicago,but it would be more
accurateto say that he lived in Philadelphia.More than once Armstrongspelled
the pluralof apparatus"apparatii."
In her remarkson Fox Talbot'sThePencilofNature(London:Longman,Brown,
Green & Longmans,1844-1846), Armstrongwrote, "Finally,ratherthan a point
of origin in the teleologicaldevelopmentof the photographtowardits manifest
destinyas a massmedium,I wish to understandit [the photographicallyillustrated
book] againas an experiment,but by no meansa foregone conclusion,in the 'massification'of the photographand the photographicallyillustratedbook, sewnwith
its author'sgentlemanlyambivalenceon thatscore,withthe marksof his contrarian
desireto preserveits privacyand its preindustrialnature,and withthe unfamiliarity
of anotherera besidesour ownwhosevalueswere other than ours.No matterhow
the formand obviousthe contentof ThePencilofNaturemightseem
self-explanatory
to us now, it is worth the labor to make it strange" (p. 112).
Armstronghasa knackfor makingsimplethingsappearto be muchmore complicatedand strangethantheyare,at leastin myopinion. She evidentlyset out to write
a difficultbook, and in thatshe has succeeded.Readerswho arenot au courantwith
the latestacademicjargon will likelyfind it problematic.I thinkArmstrongwould
have servedher readersbetterif she had paid less attentionto Barthesand Comte
and more attentionto Strunkand White.
PhilipJ. Weimerskirch,SpecialCollections,
ProvidencePublic Library,RhodeIsland

Untold Stories:Civil Rights, Librariesand Black Librarianship.Edited by John Mark

Tucker. Champaign:Universityof IllinoisPress,1999.Pp. xvi+265. $49.95 (cloth).

$19.95 (paper). ISBN0-252-06746-0(paper).
Librarianshipdoes not escape the ugly stain of race relationsin the United States
as the documentationin this slim volume presentsclearly.Althoughit is doubtful
that the full storyof race and librarianshipwill ever be told in all its complexity,
the fifteenpapersthatcomprisethiscollectionoffernumerousinsightsinto various
aspectsof the relationshipof AfricanAmericansand librariesin North America.
Publishedby the Universityof IllinoisPressfor the GraduateSchool of Libraryand
InformationScience, it is a significantcontributionto the historicalliteratureof

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