This Reader brings together, for the first time, key writings about the nineteenth century, a key period in contemporary discussion of visual culture.

Exploring such topics as photographs, exhibitions and advertising the editors suggest that 'modernity' rather than 'modernism' is a valuable way of understanding the changes particular to the visual culture of the time, and they investigate a variety of nineteenth-century images, technologies and visual experiences.

With three specially-written essays about definitions of visual culture as an object of study, the book...