His twenty-four resulting prints, which include architectural studies, local landscapes, still lifes, close-ups, and even a carefully executed portrait, remain strikingly modern and quietly beautiful. The Pencil of Nature has been published in several different incarnations, yet this edition is the first to have been reproduced from the original plates held in England’s National Media Museum, each page of the original work published here as Fox Talbot had intended. A 44-page illustrated introduction by Colin Harding gives shape to Fox Talbot’s life and times, how he became interested in the notion of a “photogenic drawing” process, how he invented the Calotype, and how he conceived of The Pencil of Nature—the means by which he could show the art of photography to the world for the first time in a book. This is an essential volume for historians, photographers, and anyone interested in the development of photography.