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Out of the Shadows. Herschel, Talbot, and the Invention of Photography. LARRY J. SCHAAF. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1992. xii, 188 pp., illus. $50.
Early in January 1839, Francois Arago announced to the French Academy of Science that Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre had discovered a method for making permanent the image formed within a camera obscura and that shortly the exact nature of this process would be revealed to the public. There was an excited response to Arago's announcement that was immediate and far-reaching. In England, William Henry Fox Talbot was taken aback. In 1835 he had devised a process like the one described by Arago but had never publicized his discovery. The French announcement pushed Talbot to make a counterclaim for priority and apparently dealt him a personal blow from which he never recovered. Although Talbot and Daguerre were not the only people to disclose photographic discoveries in 1839, Talbot's photogenic drawing and Daguerre's daguerreotype were the most important and influential processes announced that...