Daguerre, Louis-Jacques Mande:

$32,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

HISTORIQUE ET DESCRIPTION DES PROCÉDÉS DU DAGUERRÉOTYPE ET DU DIORAMA, PAR DAGUERRE.... The rare first edition, first issue, second imprint (the first Susse Frères issue) of this landmark work in the invention of photography. The first issue is known in only three copies, so this is practically the earliest obtainable edition of the first account of the invention of Daguerre's process. The first issue of this work and the production of the first commercially-available apparatus had been entrusted to Giroux, Mdme. Daguerre's kinsman and Daguerre's partner. The text was clouded in secrecy and publication was dated August 18 to coincide with the unveiling of the first commercially-produced daguerreotype cameras. The entire supply sold out in the first few hours. The present issue was published the next month, on September 14, presumably to coincide with a new batch of equipment which Daguerre's team also supplied. Such was the demand for Daguerre's cameras that by the end of 1840, almost forty versions of this work had been published in at least eight different languages. Interestingly, Pierre G. Harmant argues convincingly in an article in HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY: AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY (January 1977, pp.79-83) that the first copy Daguerre saw of his manual on September 7, the date of his first public presentation, actually bore the imprint of Susse Freres, not the slightly earlier imprint from Giroux.Daguerre's groundbreaking manual describes his invention of the daguerreot

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