Julia Margaret Cameron's Images for Tennyson to Auction
Julia Margaret Cameron', illustrations to Tennyson's Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, first volume, first edition
In 1874, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron was asked by her neighbour and close friend, renowned poet Alfred Tennyson if she would create some illustrations for a new 'popular' edition of his poems on Arthurian legends, The Idylls of the King.
She made 245 exposures and eventually produced her own work of her full-size prints alongside excerpts from Tennyson’s poems. A second volume followed, and the work was highly praised for elevating the medium of photography. A copy of the first edition leads Bonhams' Fine Books and Manuscripts sale which runs online March 10-20. It has an estimate of £20,000-30,000.
The copy in the sale was given to Henry Irving, one the most celebrated actors of his day, whose performance as Hamlet had inspired Tennyson to turn his hand to writing plays.
“Julia Margaret Cameron and Alfred Tennyson were two titans of the Victorian Age who elevated their fields to new heights," said Matthew Haley, Managing Director of Bonhams Knightsbridge and Head of Bonhams UK Books & Manuscripts. "With photography still in its infancy, Cameron showed that photography could be an artform in its own right from the start.”
Other highlights include:
- an original drawing for The Ghostly passengers in the Ghost of a Mail from The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club inscribed by Charles Dickens (estimate: £15,000 - £20,000). There is no record of any other original Pickwick drawings with a Dickens inscription being offered at auction since 1953.
- five important sketches of private theatricals performed by Charles Dickens and his friends at his Tavistock House home by his neighbour Nathaniel Powell (estimate: £8,000 - £12,000). Dickens converted the house's large schoolroom into a small theatre in which to present theatricals performed by himself, family and friends including fellow novelist Wilkie Collins (who also wrote several of the productions, including The Lighthouse and The Frozen Deep), Punch editor Mark Lemon, and the artist Frank Stone.
- first authorized English translation of The Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1888, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, offered by Oxfam (estimate: £4,000 - £6,000)
