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CAMERON (JULIA MARGARET) Illustrations to Tennyson's Idylls of the King, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY CAMERON TO HENRY IRVING, 1875
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CAMERON (JULIA MARGARET)
Footnotes
RARE WORK ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTEEN FULL-PLATE PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE PIONEERING FEMALE PHOTOGRAPHER, WARMLY INSCRIBED TO HENRY IRVING.
Julia Margaret Cameron was a neighbour and close friend of Tennyson on the Isle of Wight. In 1874 he suggested that she make some illustrations for a new "popular" edition of his poems on Arthurian legends, The Idylls of the King. Eventually only three of Cameron's pictures were used, as woodcuts and in a reduced size. Undeterred Tennyson then suggested she produce a work illustrated with her full-size prints alongside excerpts from his poems. This first volume, prepared for Christmas 1874 "did not achieve the commercial and critical success Cameron had hoped for", but a second volume followed in May 1875. "Cameron made the most of this opportunity to demonstrate that photography was the equal of any other form of book illustration. The results provide a convincingly human and contemporary interpretation of the dense mythic world of Arthurian legend" (Cox and Ford, Julia Margaret Cameron. The Complete Photographs, 2003, p.468).
Henry Irving (1838-1905) was the most celebrated actor of his day, "whose performance as Hamlet had been the inspiration for Tennyson becoming a playwright" (Cox and Ford, p.34). He supported Tennyson's early efforts for the stage, with productions of three of his tragedies, Queen Mary (1876), Becket (1879), and The Cup". In October 1875, four months after inscribing the book for Irving, Cameron left England for Ceylon.
Provenance: Henry Irving, presentation inscription from Julia Margaret Cameron dated 2 June 1875 on endpaper; private English collection.

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