At the age of 48, when she moved to the Isle of Wight, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was given a camera by her daughter: "It might amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater." The gift was to begin Cameron-s short but prolific career as one of photography-s first great artists.
"From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour, and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour."
The modern interest in Cameron-s photography began with the pioneering 1926 book by her great-niece Virginia Woolf and art critic Roger Fry. Their essays and the original plates are reprinted here, together with Cameron-s own account of her life in photography, Annals of My Glass House, her only surviving poem, On a Portrait, and an introduction by Tristram Powell.
Thirty-nine plates and other illustrations have been added, including many of Cameron-s most famous images.
