Cartomania: Photography and Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century
£40.00
Paul Frecker’s lavishly illustrated account brings fresh insight into Cartomania, the photographic phenomenon that seized the public imagination at the beginning of the 1860s.
All September’s publications are available to order from your favourite bookshop. If you’re buying online, purchasing directly from us ensures our authors get the best royalties. Orders will be shipped within 5 working days.
Customers in the EU will be responsible for paying any tax due. For overseas customers buying online we recommend Bookshop.org in North America and Booktopia in Australia and New Zealand.
DESCRIPTION & REVIEWS
Cartomania was a photographic phenomenon that seized the public imagination at the beginning of the 1860s. Small portraits, dubbed cartes de visite, were avidly exchanged with friends and family, quickly earning a reputation as ‘the paper currency of social intercourse’. Compiled into albums and prominently displayed in the home to peruse, assess and discuss, this first explosion of commercial portraiture proved a wildly popular craze, particularly once celebrities embraced the new format.
Paul Frecker’s lavishly illustrated account brings fresh insight into the careers of the enterprising men and women who established studios and into the lives of those who passed before their cameras. With unparalleled depth of research and evocative prose, he vividly brings to life the photographers and many of their subjects. From reigning queens and visiting sultans to grieving mothers and nefarious criminals, all life lies within. Whether dressed in their best or in fancy dress, Cartomania’s devotees and their often extraordinary stories are laid bare in this fascinating view of mid-Victorian society.
‘As Paul Frecker explains in this eye-opening and frequently jaw-dropping history of the phenomenon, it was “a perfect storm of merchandising, consumerism and social display”, and reading his account of its rise and fall, accompanied by hundreds of images from Frecker’s own collection, opens up a set of fascinating peepholes onto a now vanished world.’
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Spectator
‘Lavishly illustrated with incredible examples of the genre, from royalty and celebrity through to the subversive courtesans of the day … It’s a fascinating and exhaustive study, Frecker is an expert in the field and combines the factual and historical with much wry humour and clearly relishes relaying his knowledge as well as the most sensational stories of the day.’
Wylde Magazine
‘No book on the carte de visite would be complete without a well-curated selection of these photographs, and Frecker has certainly chosen some brilliant examples.’
Creative Review
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
