10 Must Reads: History of Photography From Original Sources is not just another book on the history of photography. Based entirely on original sources of the time, it reflects the energy, excitement and passion which the invention and development of photography evoked in its most innovative and experimental period during the years 1840-1900.

At the outset, Henry Fox Talbot diffidently introduces photography to the world in his "little work now presented to the public." While just 45 years later photographer P H Emerson launches his polemic arguing...