William henry fox talbot biography book

H J P Arnold, William Henry Fox Talbot; Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science
(London: Hutchinson Benham, Ltd, ).

This book, the standard biography of Talbot, outlines the full range of his activities and interests. It is extensively documented and endnoted; the family trees and bibliography are a useful appendix. The illustrations, while numerous, are small and secondary to the text. Arnold's research was cut by about a third for publication (with the cuts mostly in non-photographic areas). The full unpublished text may be consulted in typescript at the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock and in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of The University of Texas at Austin.

Gail Buckland, Fox Talbot and the Invention of Photography  (Boston: David R Godine, ).

Buckland, the former curator of the Royal Photographic Society collection, gives a lively and sensitive account of Talbot's activities, concentrating on photography. Whereas the text is less extensive and less documented than Arnold's, Buckland's selection of Talbot's images is superb. The quality of the monochromatic reproductions is uneven but the full colour reproductions give a very good sense of the originals.