Mary Warner Marien
Photography and Its Critics: A Cultural History, 1839-1900.
Cambridge University Press, 1997. Cambridge Perspectives on Photography. Author-signed first edition. 0521550432 xvi/222 pages.
Volume, measuring approximately 7.25" x 10.5", is bound in burgundy cloth, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Rear cover has very faint stain. Book is otherwise in fine condition, with firm binding, clean and bright interior.
Inscription on front flyleaf reads: "June 1997 / For Frank Macomber - / Every page of this book /  represents a frantic call / from the author for computer / help. For your assistance / ingenuity, and with, I am / most grateful / Mary (illegible word)."
""Photography and its Critics" offers an original overview of nineteenth-century American and European writing about photography from such disparate fields as art theory, social reform, and physiology. In this study, Mary Warner Marien argues that photography was an important social and cultural symbol for modernity and change in several fields, such as art and social reform. Moreover, she demonstrates how photography quickly emerged as a pliant symbol for modernity and change, one that could as easily oppose progress as promote democracy."