John Thomson | Street Life in London [and] Street Incidents. London, 1877-81, 2 volumes, publisher's pictorial cloth

John Thomson and Adolphe Smith Headingley

Street Life in London [and: Street Incidents]. London: Samson, Low, Searle & Rivington, 1877-1881

Street Life.... with permanent photographic illustrations, taken from life expressly for this purpose. London, 1877

4to (279 x 215mm.), 37 Woodbury-type photographs on 36 plates, each with printed caption and red ruled border, publisher's maroon pictorial cloth, decoratively stamped in gilt and black, edges gilt, yellow endpapers, some light spotting and adhesive residue at inner margin of a few plates (not affecting images), neatly rebacked retaining original spine, slight discolouration and dampstaining to binding, slightly rubbed

Street Incidents: a series of twenty-one permanent photographs, with descriptive letter-press. London, 1881

Second (abridged) issue, 4to (279 x 215mm.), 21 Woodbury-type photographs, each with printed caption and red ruled border, publisher's green pictorial cloth decoratively stamped in gilt and black, purple floral patterned endpapers, some splitting to first gathering, title reinforced with tissue at inner margin, title and final text leaf lightly browned, binding slightly bowed and dampstained, slightly rubbed

The two works housed together in modern collector's box

"The first photographic social documentation of any kind" (Gernsheim).

John Thomson's photographs in Street Life in London and Street Incidents, along with the commentary upon the images by Thomson and Smith Headingley, depict a London in which life is a harsh and continuous struggle. The characters on view here are familiar to us more from Dickens' novels, or from an idea of the Whitechapel of Jack the Ripper, than from any nostalgic image of fusty or patrician Victorianism. Thomson and Smith Headingley are, however, sympathetic to the objects of their study. As Thomson himself writes: "the precision and accuracy of photography enables us to present true types of the London poor and shield us from the accusation of either underrating or exaggerating individual peculiarities of appearance". Street Incidents is "a pioneering work of social documentation [...] one of the most significant and far-reaching photobooks in the medium's history" (Parr & Badger).

LITERATURE:

Street Incidents: cf. Gernsheim 447; cf. Hasselblad 42; cf. Parr & Badger I:48; cf. Truthful Lens 169