Belgian Photographic Literature of the 19th Century: A Bibliography and Census

In English and French. The development of photography from its roots in nineteenth-century science gradually transformed book illustration and the dissemination of images. This reference work presents the first comprehensive overview of Belgian photographic literature of the nineteenth century, encompassing both illustrated books and scientific publications. It makes a major contribution to academic study in the field, with a corpus of 681 entries. Each title is accompanied by information about locations of surviving copies in institutional collections in Belgium and elsewhere. An introductory essay plots the development of photographic publishing in Belgium, making full use of primary and secondary sources, and an album of more than eighty images draws on the rich iconography of early Belgian photographic literature, most reprinted here for the first time.