Idylls of the King

Artist Julia Margaret Cameron (English | British, 1815-1879)

Publisher Henry S. King & Co., London, 1875

Author Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British, 1809-1892)

Date1875

Dimensionsbook: 17 1/2 x 13 3/8 in. (444 x 339mm)
page: 17 1/4 x 13 in. (438 x 330mm)

MediumOriginal prints: 12 albumen silver prints Text: photomechanical reproduction of handwritten text; letterpress (Turner's sonnet and title page) Paper: ivory wove paper

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineMrs. George W. Stevens Fund

Object number

1987.16A-L

Not on View

Label TextAt the instigation of her friend and neighbor Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Julia Margaret Cameron produced more than 200 16 x 12-inch albumen silver prints to serve as models for wood engravings to illustrate Tennyson’s new 1859 publication, Idylls of the King. Unfortunately, Tennyson’s publisher did not share the photographer’s vision and only two photographs were chosen for the book. Disappointed, Cameron undertook the publication of her own book illustrating Tennyson’s poems. Sixteen years later, Cameron published two volumes of Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and Other Poems. Each volume was illustrated with 12 albumen silver prints. Of her theory of photography Cameron wrote, “My aspirations are to ennoble Photography and to secure for it the character and uses of High Art by combining the real and ideal and sacrificing nothing of Truth by all possible devotion to Poetry and beauty.”Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Prints and Authors from the Time of Manet, September 13, 2012-January 13, 2013.