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This book chronicles the invention of an art - and equally, the art of invention. Two men who had long been friends and scientific colleagues became close collaborators on the public announcement of the discovery of photography in 1839. At the beginning of that year, William Henry Fox Talbot had been surprised by the announcement in Paris that Louis Daguerre had invented a photographic process. His subsequent actions, and those of his rival, mirrored the competitive economic race, and the differences in support of science and art, between France and Britain.