1058
were strongly rooted in the subjectivity of its author. A
number of the pictures illustrated a private (and even
aristocratic) realm, which Talbot’s texts construed as
the antithesis to the universalist, Republican discourse
that surrounded photography in France. In the Pencil
of Nature, photography triggered fancy, as exercised
especially in the activities of reading, writing, and more
generally playing with signs; it engaged the reader’s
curiosity as a novel kind of sign itself. Thus fulfi lling
the concerns voiced in the preface, the Pencil of Nature
succeeded in establishing—in contrast to the utilitarian-
ism of the daguerreotype—an alternative defi nition of
photography as “pencil of nature,” i.e. the playful art
of applying the “mere action of Light” to a singular,
human creation.
François Brunet
See also: Talbot, William Henry Fox; Calotype
and Talbotype; Henneman, Nicolaas; and
Daguerreotype.
Further Reading
Buckland, Gail, Fox Talbot and the Invention of Photography,
Boston: Godine, 1980.
Gernsheim, Helmut, Incunabula of British Photographic Lit-
erature, A Bibliography, London and Berkeley: Scolar Press,
1984.
Newhall, Beaumont, ed., [W.H. Fox Talbot,] The Pencil of Nature,
New York: Da Capo, 1969.
Schaaf, Larry, The Anniversary Facsimile of H. Fox Talbot’s The
Pencil of Nature, New York: Krauss, 1989.
——, The Photographic Art of William Henry Fox Talbot, Princ-
eton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.
von Amelunxen, Hubertus, Die Aufgehobene Zeit, Die Erfi ndung
der Photographie durch William Henry Fox Talbot [Time
Suspended, the Discovery of Photography by W.H.F. Talbot],
Berlin: Nishen, 1989.
PENN, ALBERT THOMAS WATSON
(1849–1924)
The son of a family of shoemakers originating in
Northamptonshire, Penn was born in Street, Somer-
setshire on 30 March 1849. Leaving home before the
age of twelve, by 1865 he had arrived in Ootacamund,
the South Indian hill station in the Nilgiri range west
of Madras. During his fi rst decade as a photographer
in India, Penn appears to have worked closely with the
fi rm of Nicholas Brothers (later Nicholas and Curths),
before establishing his own studio in Ootacamund in
- From 1871 Ootacamund had served as the seat
of Government for Madras during the hot season and
the infl ux of European visitors to the hills, swelling the
resident population, assured the photographer a steady
market: for the last quarter of the 19th century, the Penn
studio was the most successful photographic business
in the Nilgiris, producing a comprehensive record of
the town and surrounding hills in work that is often
reminiscent of the picturesque style of Samuel Bourne.
Penn also made an important documentation of the 1877
famine in South India and an extensive record of the hill
tribes of the Nilgiris, in addition to supplying illustra-
tions for a number of published works. He came back
to England with his wife in 1911, but returned to South
India after the First World War and died at Coonoor in
the Nilgiris on 19 October 1924, where he is buried in
the Tiger Hill Cemetery.
John FalconerPENROSE PICTORIAL ANNUAL
From its fi rst issue in 1895 as The Process Work Year
Book Penrose’s Annual, as it was more generally known
for nearly a century, provided a review of progress in
photo-mechanical and printing work and in its early
years offered a unique source of examples of different
photo-mechanical printing processes.
It was initially published by A W Penrose & Co which
had opened a Photo-Process Stores at Upper Baker
Street, London, and was edited by William Gamble
(1864–1933) the partner in the fi rm responsible for the
process engraving side of the business. He also edited
Penrose’s Process Work. From 1897 the annual was
printed and bound by Lund Humphries of Bradford who
in 1909 acquired an interest in the publication when
they took over as publishers. Gamble emphasised in
1898 that Penrose saw the annual as more than simply a
commercial venture, it was designed to promote photo-
mechanical printing more generally.
Gamble had felt the need for an annual review
which would give engraving fi rms the opportunity of
showing specimens of their work. In the annual these
were pages that were supplied directly by those fi rms
as printing blocks or as printed sheets which enabled
the annual to be produced and sold at a price that was
signifi cantly lower than its actual costs of production.
No payments were made to photographers as the annual
considered that an appearance in its pages constituted
an introduction to editors and publishers. The specimen
pages were supplemented by an editorial surveying
progress over the previous year and articles on tech-
niques and materials. In the early years these included
many authors from photography such as Bolas, Broth-
ers, Waterhouse, Sanger Shepherd, Chapman Jones and
Horsley Hinton. Advertising pages at the rear of the
book included catalogues from Penrose and fi rms from
the printing, process and photographic trades. Gamble
aimed the annual at ‘the editor, publisher, author, art-
ist, photographer, printer, engraver, paper maker, ink
maker, binder...’
In 1896 the annual became The Process Year Book.
An Illustrated Review of Photo-Mechanical Processes.