Victorian Musings

“The rough and unequal texture throughout the paper is the main cause of the calotype failing in details before the Daguerreotype…and this is the very life of it. The look like the imperfect work of man…and not the much diminished perfect work of God” David Octavius Hill in a letter dated January 17, 1848 David Octavius Hill (1802-70) was a respected painter and secretary of the Royal Scottish Academy before he entered into the famous partnership with Robert Adamson becoming a photographer as well. A handsome, sociable and cheerful man, Hill was much loved within Edinburgh society. In 1837 he married his first wife, Ann Macdonald, who died in 1841, leaving him a widower with an only child. Charlotte, nicknamed Chatty, was born in 1839 but died in her early twenties. This photograph shows the affection Hill felt for his daughter. At the same time, this particular pose provided a practical way of holding the child still, as exposure times for the early calotypes could run

Etching of Edgar Allan Poe by Henri-Emile Lefort, New York Public Library On this day in 1845 Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven was published. An ad in the local paper, New York Evening Mirror included the poem in full as well as a note:  1845 - January 29 (Wednesday) (vol. I, no. 97) "The Raven" (poem, first printing) (p. 4, col. 1, top)  (reprinted in WM of February 8, 1845)  (This is, technically, the first printing of "The Raven," probably appearing just before the February issue of The American Whig Review was available.) Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” [Text-04], Evening Mirror (New York), January 29, 1845, p. 4, col. 1 We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the 2d No. of the American Review, the following remarkable poem by E DGAR P OE . In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of “fugitive poetry” ever published in this country; and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception,