Alfred W. Bennett and the Photographic Gift Book

Alfred W. Bennett better known to posterity botanist, was active as a publisher in London in the eighteen-sixties. Almost uniquely amongst his contem poraries, Bennett specialized in books illustrated with mounted photographic prints for the middle-class market. Every year, new ‘photographic gift books’ would be released to coincide with the Christmas season of giving. Subject matter was mainly topographical or literary. Text and images were associated creatively; design, typo graphy and photographic printing were of the highest quality. While Bennett’s career in photographically illustrated books was brief, starting in 1861 and ending in 1868, he made a distinctive contribution to the creation and development of the genre in Britain. The article evaluates Bennett’s career and impact, covering the following topics: the Quaker context that influenced Bennett’s activity as a publisher and photograph dealer; Bennett’s invention of the photographic gift book as a genre; synergy with Lovell Reeve, another pioneering photographic book publisher; the crucial importance of literary tourism for Bennett’s output; assimila tion of the concept of the Picturesque within photographic illustration; the exten sion of subject matter to Continental Europe; and the decline of the photo graphically illustrated book business in the hands of Bennett’s successor Abraham Provost.

• s t e v e n f . j o s e p h * • mongst its extensive holdings of early photographic publications, the Rijksmuseum possesses a nearly complete set of photographically illustrated books appearing under the London imprint of Alfred William Bennett (1833-1902 and his successor in the eighteen-sixties and early eighteen-seventies. 1 Almost unique amongst publishers of his day, Bennett specialized in books illustrated with mounted photographic prints for the middle-class market. Every year, he would release new titles to coincide with the Christmas and New Year gift season. Subject matter was mainly topographical or literary, and text and images were associated creatively; design, typography and photographic printing were of the highest quality. Bennett commissioned work from leading British photographers and popular writers, sometimes drawn from his circle of Quaker intellectuals.
Despite the achievements of Bennett and other pioneering publishers, little attention has been paid by historians to the contribution of protagonists other than the photographers themselves in the development of the photographic book. Understandably, research into photographically illustrated books has tended to concentrate on major 'authorial' works, i.e. landmark publications by important photographers. The frequently leading role played by publishers in the conception and promotion of the photographically illustrated book as a specific genre, particularly in the nineteenth century, has been largely overlooked. 2 This historiographical lacuna is in stark contrast to con temporary commentary, which tended to place the publisher's role alongside that of authors and illustrators. Not untypical are these observations by an anonymous reviewer of Bennett's latest output: Mr. Bennett, we believe, was the first to recognize the great capabilities of photography in certain departments of pictorial illustration; and he has persevered in its application until he has produced pictures of the most exquisite tone and beauty, especially in architecture. These sumptuous and delicious volumes are more than books, -they are things to be handled lovingly and reverently. Photographic illustration has never been more felicitously applied than in these volumes. 3 While the claim made for Bennett's precedence in photographic publishing may be questioned, there is little doubt as to his pre-eminence in this sphere in mid-Victorian London, the centre of British printing, publishing and photography. This article aims to characterize Bennett's contribution. < A The Quaker Context Alfred William Bennett was born on 24 June 1833 in Clapham, then a semi-rural parish in the county of Surrey before the advent of the railway transformed it into a suburb for commuters into central London. 4 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Clapham was well known as the home of social reformers, many of whom were wealthy City merchants of an evangelical Anglican or non-conformist Protestant faith. It was in this milieu that Bennett was brought up, the second son of William Bennett (1804-1873, tea dealer and amateur botanist ( fig. 1) the largest stock in the world of first-class English Scenery (ready for shipment at an hour's notice)'. 9 Bennett continued to expand his photography publishing and wholesaling operation well into the eighteensixties, enlarging his stock beyond stereography to celebrity portraiture, photograph albums and large topographical prints ( fig. 6) and by this time ensuring a certain synergy with his photographic gift books.
Bennett's initial forays into photographic book publishing were tentative and the output bore little resemblance to the ornate gift books which would make his reputation. Gathered Fragments (1858) is a Quaker memoir, a staple of the Bennett publishing house, illustrated with two albumen prints of architectural sketches. A review in Bennett's own magazine characterized the prints as 'unexceptionable photographic illustrations'. 10 Stereoscopic Illustra tions of Clonmel (1860) is a joint imprint by Bennett with two Dublin publishers of a set of stereoscopic views 'with descriptive letterpress'. There is a certain family likeness with Lovell Reeve's stereoscopically illustrated books, in particular Teneriffe: an Astronomer's Experiment (1858), written and illustrated by Charles Piazzi Smyth. 11 However, unlike Lovell Reeve's publications, Clonmel was of local interest only and published in a limited edition. A prospectus was issued for Stephen Thompson's Waverley Series (1862), a set of topographical photographs 'about eighteen inches by twelve inches' without accompanying text. 12 Planned to comprise fifty prints, the full set is unlikely to have been issued.
Finally, amongst Bennett's false starts was a prestigious photographic moon atlas, projected to comprise twelve parts issued quarterly. The first part of Our Satellite appeared in August 1862, created a scandal and publication of further parts had to be suspended. Bennett had been hoodwinked by a charlatan going by the pseudonym Dr A. Le Vengeur d'Orsan into using lunar photographs that the chemist and astronomer Warren De La Rue (1815-1889) had in fact taken in February 1858. While the plagiarist denounced his 'recalcitrant publisher', Bennett was 'forced to the conclusion that it is not in Dr D'Orsan's power to produce that evidence which would at once overthrow the grave charges which have been advanced against his lunar observations'. 13 To save his reputation, Bennett discontinued publication of the atlas and would hesitate before venturing again into scientific territory for his photographic publications. His publishing house pursued other, more popular lines, such as devotional verse, children's and juvenile literature as well as religious and improving works consistent with Bennett's Quaker convictions. The introduction of the photographic gift book would be a departure from his publishing mainstream and a bold innovation.

Invention of a Genre
After photography was introduced to the world in 1839, the printing industry was soon considered a promising field for applications. In practice, take-up and integration of the new technology proved rather slow. While there were pioneers of photographic printing in the eighteen-forties and the eighteenfifties, processing and transferring images remained complicated and timeconsuming. The albumen process, which became the industry standard, required each print to be separately mounted and therefore did not admit economies of scale. Furthermore, the market for publica tions integrating text and images was well satisfied by the tried-and-tested processes of engraving and lithography. The challenge of the radical new techno logy of photography was successfully resisted, for reasons of economy and convenience. 14 When Alfred Bennett came on the scene in the late eighteenfifties, the impact of photography on the printing industry in Britain remained minimal and its application to book illustration was not yet widespread. The sustainable exploitation of photographic printing would require the deployment of entrepreneurial flare.
The illustrated gift book was a recognized tradition in mid-Victorian Britain. Designed to attract the eye and serve as a lasting tokens of esteem, gift books were the highlights of several publishers' Christmas and New Year's offerings for a literate and increasingly  secular middle-class market. Illustrations often took the form of specially commissioned wood engravings present ing the works of contemporary artists or featuring pastoral views. Bindings were typically ornate, in embossed cloth or leather and with giltstamped lettering. As book historian David McKitterick has observed: 'In a world obsessed with decoration and pattern … books could be sold almost as much by their outside as by their contents.' 15 In an era of unprecedented advance in industry and technology, it was only a matter of time before the new medium of photography would be incorporated into the annual publishing cycle by an enterprising businessman.
When Alfred Bennett announced the forthcoming publication of Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain for the 1861-62 holiday season, he took a full-page advertisement in the main trade publication, headlined 'The Photog raphically Illustrated Gift-Book'. It departed from custom by prominently crediting the photo g raphers who were involved: 'The Photographic Illustrations by Bedford, Sedgfield, Wilson, Fenton, and others.' 16 The work was indeed eye-catching: the centre of the decorative binding was occupied by a photographic cartouche ( fig. 2) while the text was interspersed with mounted photographic vignettes to animate the surrounding narrative ( fig. 3). The husband-and-wife team of William and Mary Howitt proved a judicious choice for the commissioned authors. They were indefatigable writers on historical and literary subjects, old friends from the Quaker community and Mary, for one, was favourably disposed to photog raphy, having recently written: 'Sun-Pictures, as secured by the photo graphic art, are amongst the most beautiful and interesting discoveries of the present day.' 17 As to the illustrations, Bennett could draw on the many stereo views he had in stock, taken by most of the a l f r e d w . b e n n e t t a n d t h e p h o t o g r a p h i c g i f t b o o k  In light of this collective achievement by the publisher, 19 authors, designer, typographers and photographic illustrators, Bennett's publicity cannot be dismissed as a mere marketing ploy. Fellow London publisher Lovell Reeve, with stereographically illustrated works on Normandy, Conway as well as Teneriffe, could claim priority, were it not for the fact that his publications required a stereo viewer to be appre ciated, thus erecting an obstacle to fully merging images and text. Mention should also be made of a literary antho logy, Sunshine in the Country, published in London by Richard Griffin and Company in 1861. A celebration of the rural way of life, the book contains twenty stereo halves featuring compositions from nature as headpieces to complement the poetry, much in the same position and form as decorative wood engravings might be expected to appear. 20 However, this was a one-off publication which attracted no emulation, even if it did share characteristics with some of Bennett's later output.
In a short preface to Ruined Abbeys and Castles, Bennett set out what amounts to a manifesto for the new publishing genre he was ambitiously intending to create. Addressing the reader in the third person, Bennett stresses both the appropriateness and authenticity of photography for topographical illustration and alludes to the long-term nature of his project. 'It appears to us a decided advance in the department of Topography, thus to unite it to Photography. … We trust that this idea of our Publisher will be pursued to the extent of which it is capable; and that hereafter we shall have works of topography and travel, illustrated by the photographer with all the yet-to-be improvements of the art, so that we shall be able to feel, when reading of new scenes and lands, that we are not amused with pleasant fictions, but presented with realities. With this sentiment we submit the present work to the public, as a step in the right direction.' 21 Bennett and his successor would remain faithful to the pattern that had been set for the following ten years: over fifty different editions of forty-two separate titles, the vast majority in the areas of topography and travel, including placebased literary works, clearly a profitable cross-over genre. Every year before the Christmas season Bennett would take full-page advertisements in the trade press to list new titles and his back catalogue ( fig. 7). Maintaining focus on the mode of illustration, subjects are listed individually under each title, alongside sometimes substantial quotations from approving reviews that had appeared in a diverse range of newspapers and magazines. This gives some indication of the sophistication and dynamism of Bennett's marketing, aimed at reinforcing and highlighting the concept of the photographic gift book.
In the absence of archives or other primary sources concerning Bennett's business, we can only speculate as to his relations with his printers and photographers, as well as production schedules, print-runs and distribution. Comparisons may be made with de luxe non-photographic gift books for the same competitive market. For instance, the London publisher Edward Moxon's edition of Alfred Tennyson's Poems, intended for the 1856 Christmas market, contained fifty-four specially commissioned wood engravings and retailed at £1 11s. 6d. (one-and-a-half guineas), the same price as the morocco-bound version of Ruined Abbeys and Castles and several of Bennett's subsequent titles.
The 'Moxon Tennyson' had a print-run of 10,000 which turned out to be overoptimistic, and 5,000 copies were later remaindered. 22 Thus, it would be reasonable to surmise that Bennett's publications must have had print-runs in the low thousands at least.

Literary Tourism and the Picturesque
Ruined Abbeys and Castles remained one of Bennett's most popular titles. A second series was issued for the Christmastide market of 1863-64. This was complemented by four smaller, cheaper and more portable spin-off titles extracted from the two series and covering specific geographi cal areas: The Wye ( fig. 5) Success of these publications can be attributed in large measure to the first word of the title. A contemporary educated readership would have certain expectations of the aspect and impact of ruins, based on tenets of the Picturesque, the dominant visual aesthetic in landscape painting of the Romantic era. The concept was adopted in turn by a first generation of landscape photographers, many schooled in the Romantic aesthetic and influenced by pictorial precedent. As Grace Seiberling has observed, 'cultural convention defined photographic choices'. 23 The Picturesque 'introduced an unprecedented positive evaluation of the characteristics of roughness, irregularity and decay (e.g. by replacing stately classical buildings with ruins)'. 24 Bennett was consciously reflecting this dominant aesthetic in the selection and presentation of photographic illustrations in Ruined Abbeys, where the telling fragment is not information-bearing but rather aims to evoke an atmos phere of decay.
Another winning formula was the anthology of verse illustrated with site-specific photography in emotive Romantic mode. Bennett concentrated on the work of two of the most popular and successful authors of the nineteenth century, Walter Scott (1771-1832) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850), whose evocation of natural landscape found huge resonance amongst a readership who hankered after an   age was the late Poet Laureate William Wordsworth. The readers of his Romantic poetry wanted to see for themselves the settings in the Lake District that he had immortalized. Bennett not only tailored his literary output to a receptive readership but set down a plausible itinerary for potential, past or armchair tourists.

Our English Lakes, Mountains and Waterfalls as Seen by William
Wordsworth went through four editions in six years, initially for the 1864 season gift market. As in the case of Scott, the anthology opens with an immediately recognizable tourist shrine to the author, a frontispiece view of Wordsworth's home ( fig. 9). The ensuing verse and accompanying photographs by Thomas Ogle are structured by location ( fig. 10), in a technique that has been memorably described as transforming Ogle's images into a 'mnemonic device that facilitates a moment of cultural recognition'. 28 In fact Bennett, or his mouthpiece, was explicit in setting out this approach in an introduction to the first edition and reprinted in subsequent editions: '[The Compiler] has, antidote to industrialization and the urban environment. Geoffrey Wakeman has summarized the appeal of photography inspired by Scott's works: 'Photographs made ideal souvenirs and some books were obviously aimed at this market. Queen Victoria's passion made it fashionable for tourists, and publishers capitalized on the fact.' 25 In Bennett's and his successor's case, this meant the republication of four of Scott's verse narratives set in a medieval or chivalric past, repackaged as photographic gift books, beginning in 1863 with the acclaimed poem The Lady of the Lake. This was immediately followed up with a viewbook of images alone, Lady of the Lake Album, described as 'Containing 24 Photographs, Illustrating the Scenery of the 'Lady of the Lake'. 26 For a title-page vignette to the republished poem, Bennett featured not the expected landscape view but George Washington Wilson's study of the author's tomb, a tourist mecca on the Scott trail ( fig. 8). 27 Scott's opposite number in England as a wildly successful bard of the heritage landscape and object of secular pilgrim-however compelling in themselves, bear little similarity to the great bulk of Bennett's rurally focused output ( fig. 11).
In the absence of personal or company archives, there are few sources other than the structure and content of advertisements to offer insight into Bennett's strategy and convictions. Bennett or a close associate did however articulate his views on photography in a guide to aspiring authors that he had inherited from his predecessors and that went into several editions during his stewardship of the company. Referring to photo graphy as 'that most marvellous of all the marvellous inventions', he tempered his boosterism with a qualification: 'Although the sunpictures never can take the place altogether of the productions of the genuine artist, whether on wood, stone, or copper, yet for a certain class of Illustrations, Photography is now recognised as the most beautiful mode of representation.' 30 He goes on to make an assertion that demonstrates how well the concept of the Pictures que as far as practicable, classified these extracts under the heads of the different Lakes or other objects of interest in each locality. By this arrangement it is believed that not only will the Reader be able, with the assistance of the Photographic Illustrations, … to appreciate the more fully Wordsworth's wonderfully true descriptions of the beauties of Nature; but the Tourist will have the additional pleasure of identifying with his own favourite spot.' 29 This form of cultural commodification, the literary and picturesque combined with evocative photography having tourism as an underlining incentive, lies at the heart of what Bennett under stood to be the photographic gift book. He was so protective of the genre that other photographic titles under the Bennett imprint, sometimes acquired from or issued jointly with other publish ers, were not necessarily advertised under the same label. This is the case, for instance, with Sheffield and its Neighbourhood (1865), a mono graph on a heavily urbanizing area of the country, the illustrations to which, Once again, he appears to be following the tourist trail, as Continental travel became a prerogative of the British middle class. As has been acutely observed, 'the train and camera were invented almost at the same time, and technological progress in photo graphy paralleled the growth of railway lines'. 32 And where the railway led, so the earliest mass tourists would follow. Thomas Cook conducted his first Continental package tour in 1855, taking two parties from Harwich to Antwerp, then on to Brussels, Cologne, Heidelberg, Strasbourg and finally to Paris for the International Exhibition. Cook offered his first Swiss tour in 1863. Bennett's output neatly shadows Cook's itineraries; his publications initially covered the accessible towns of coastal France had been assimilated: 'In the delineation, especially of natural scenery, the sun-delineated picture possesses advantages which are shared by no other style of illustration. … the crumbling castle-wall mantled with ivy, the outline of the mountain-peak, or the lake calmly sleeping in the sunshine, are precisely as nature has depicted them.' 31 To reinforce the message of the value of photography, and not so incidentally to promote the company's titles, the guide's fronti spiece was a 'specimen of photographic illustration', taken from a Bennett imprint.

A Continental Thread
In 1865, Bennett decided to extend the geographical reach of his photographic gift books beyond the British Isles. (Normandy and Brittany) and Belgium, then penetrated the Continental interior through Germany and Switzerland and finally reached Italy.
Bennett's Continental strategy differed somewhat from his British works. Instead of buying up available views by local photographers, he generally commissioned leading British professional photographers, already appreciated for their landscape work, to undertake a tour and take photographs specifically for his public ations. In this, Bennett was once again not quite a pioneer -Lovell Reeve had adopted much the same approach for the first edition of Narrative of a Walking Tour in Brittany (1859), the text of which is littered with comments on the novelty and challenges of photo graphy in the field. 33 The travelogues under the Bennett imprint were also illustrated with a different kind of photograph. The Picturesque made way for a more documentary approach, and the exigencies of a tightly scheduled tour seem to have imposed an imperative of eschewing the fragmentary for the whole and a greater overall legibility. This did not go unnoticed by reviewers; one praised 'the scenic effect without the vagueness' 34 of Lewis Baldwin Fleming's prints in Flemish Relics ( fig. 12), while another wrote: 'Only photography can do full justice to the florid architecture of Belgium. The richness of detail in most of the public buildings baffles the mechani cal skill of the draughtsman.' 35 On two occasions and quite exceptionally for this period, Bennett    of St. Wolfgang] is little visited by the crowd of summer tourists. It is cheap, and the people are civil, hospitable, and hearty.' 37 The most technically in for ma tive text in any of Bennett's gift books was written by Ernest Edwards (1837Edwards ( -1903 for The Oberland and its Glaciers (1866). To emphasize the integral part which photography plays in the book, not simply a narrative of Alpine travel but a serious study on glacier formation, the full title runs Explored and Illustrated with Ice-axe and Camera ( fig. 14). Significantly, Edwards refers to himself as a photo grapher and not an artist, unlike Frith. Edwards's contribution consists of an account of meticulous planning as well as the technical challenges he encountered: 'The reason why glacier scenery is so well suited for represen tation by photography, namely that except in detail it exhibits no great variety of colours, causes at the same time one of the great practical difficul t i es in obtaining the pictures. On a sunny day the contrasts of light and shade are so violent that shadows are too apt to come out nearly black  . 15). 38 The book met with critical success on its publication in October 1866, which Bennett celebra ted in a full-page advertisement replete with quotes from the specialist and general press alike ( fig. 16). Reviewers praised Edwards for his accurate representations of glaciers and rock formations as well as for his ability to capture the Romantic potency of the mountains. Bennett, with The Ober land, had straddled the divide between gift book and scientific treatise.

Changes of Direction
In the year or so following the publication of Oberland, Bennett attempted to extend the appeal of his gift books to the American market.
Hyperion was re-issued by Ticknor and Fields of Boston from Britishprinted sheets and photographs supplied by Bennett. He also published a photographically illustrated edition of Snow-bound by American Quaker poet and abolitionist J.G. Whittier ( fig. 17). Then in August 1868 it was announced that Bennett had 'transferred his Publishing Business to Messrs. Provost & Co. Mr. Provost, we are informed, has been for several years past in Mr. Bennett's establish ment, and is therefore well acquainted with the details of the business'. 39 The new proprietor, Abraham Provost, initially maintained Bennett's publish ing schedule of several new titles a year. However, he dropped references to 'photographic gift books' in adverti se ments in favour of the term 'Provost & Co.'s Photographic Series' or the neutral expression 'Photo graphic Publications'. 40 The genre pioneered by Bennett had run its course. The physical appearance of the firm's output changed: bindings were less ornamental, photographic illustrations less imaginative, while some titles were simultaneously issued in cheaper 'library' editions with fewer prints.  In a failed attempt at diversification, a series on English public schools was launched, but only two titles appeared ( fig. 18). Apart from the waning of their novelty as a genre, photographically illustrated works suffered from concern over the long-term stability of silverbased prints, their unique selling point. One critic tartly observed: 'A picture that is likely to become a meaningless sheet of stained paper … is not much use as a book-illustration.' 41 While deterioration in print quality in the Bennett oeuvre is not so radical, ambient high humidity and sensitivity to pollutants over the hundred-andfifty-year or more lifetime of these works have precipitated visible edgefading on many albumen prints (see figs. 3, 8, 10, 18). For similar reasons, sporadic foxing can occur, generally affecting mounts rather than the image surface (see figs. 4,9,10,15,18). Less frequently, the adhesive coat fixing prints to mounts may perish, leading prints to come loose (see fig. 12). The solution was photographic reproduction in printers' ink. Provost's own guide to publishing stated that 'the various mechanical processes 42 … now run an even race, and bid fair to surpass, for both excellence and economy, other and older methods of Illustrating'. 43 Provost appears not to have entertained these newer processes for his own output, auctioned off remaindered stock in 1872 and by 1873 the firm had ceased publishing photographically illustrated books altogether.
Once Alfred Bennett had retired from publishing, he devoted himself to botany and social causes. He gained a reputation for his research into processes of flower fertilization and the flora of the Swiss Alps. Bennett was active into relative old age, becoming editor of publications of the Royal Microscopical Society in 1897. After his sudden death on 23 January 1902 aged sixtyeight, the professional tributes were fulsome. Such was the impact of his  former profession, after an interval of more than thirty years, that all made mention of Bennett's publishing achievements, and that he was 'one of the earliest publishers who made an extensive use of photography in book illustration'. 44 Another obituarist fondly recalled: 'I remember specially a pretty little volume on the Abbeys of Yorkshire with photographic views of each of them', 45 an artefact and echo of the bygone era in publishing even yet associated with Alfred W. Bennett ( fig. 19).
Alfred W. Bennett (1833Bennett ( -1902, better known to posterity as a botanist, was active as a publisher in London in the eighteen-sixties. Almost uniquely amongst his contem poraries, Bennett specialized in books illustrated with mounted photographic prints for the middle-class market. Every year, new 'photographic gift books' would be released to coincide with the Christmas season of giving. Subject matter was mainly topographical or literary. Text and images were associated creatively; design, typo graphy and photographic printing were of the highest quality.
While Bennett's career in photographically illustrated books was brief, starting in 1861 and ending in 1868, he made a distinctive contribution to the creation and development of the genre in Britain. The article evaluates Bennett's career and impact, covering the following topics: the Quaker context that influenced Bennett's activity as a publisher and photograph dealer; Bennett's invention of the photographic gift book as a genre; synergy with Lovell Reeve, another pioneering photographic book publisher; the crucial importance of literary tourism for Bennett's output; assimila tion of the concept of the Picturesque within photographic illustration; the exten sion of subject matter to Continental Europe; and the decline of the photo graphically illustrated book business in the hands of Bennett's successor Abraham Provost.