CAMERA LUCIDA - Reflections on Photography (First UK edition - first impression)

Roland Barthes (Translated from the French by Richard Howard)

ISBN 10: 0224029290 / ISBN 13: 9780224029292

Published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1982

About this Item

First impression of the first UK edition, published in 1982. The book was originally published in this translation in the USA by Hill and Wang in June 1981. Illustrated with black & white photographs throughout the text, and with a colour frontispiece: "Polaroid" by Daniel Boudinet.

***Near fine in black textured paper over white cloth-covered boards with gilt titles and gilt block to the spine, and gilt titles and gilt block to the front board. The boards are relatively clean and unmarked, and the gilt blocks are undamaged. No bumps or creases. Page block edges clean - just lightly foxed, mainly to the top edge. No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Internally very good, with some rubbed out pencil marks to the top of the front free endpaper. There are also some light pencil notes and lines in the margins - these have been left but could be rubbed out if so wished (please see scans). No foxing. Paper stock white and clean. No creases or tears.

***In a very good colour printed dustwrapper, which has been corner price-clipped to the front flap. The dustwrapper is complete, with just light rubbing to the edges. No chips, creases or tears. No fading to the spine colours. Dustwrapper bright and clean. ***214mm x 143mm. 119 pages.

Roland Gérard Barthes (12 Nov 1915 - 26 Mar 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. His ideas explored a diverse range of fields, including structuralism, anthropology, literary theory, and post-structuralism, and influenced the development of multiple schools of theory. Barthes is particularly notable for his 1957 essay collection "Mythologies", which contained reflections on popular culture, and the 1967/1968 essay "The Death of the Author", which critiqued traditional approaches in literary criticism.

Throughout his career, Barthes had an interest in photography and its potential to communicate actual events. A number of his monthly myth articles in the 1950s had attempted to show how a photographic image could represent implied meanings and thus be used by bourgeois culture to infer 'naturalistic truths'. But he still considered the photograph to have a unique potential for presenting a completely real representation of the world. When his mother, Henriette Barthes, died in 1977 he began writing Camera Lucida as an attempt to explain the unique significance a picture of her as a child carried for him. Reflecting on the relationship between the obvious symbolic meaning of a photograph (which he called the studium) and that which is purely personal and dependent on the individual, that which 'pierces the viewer' (which he called the punctum), Barthes was troubled by the fact that such distinctions collapse when personal significance is communicated to others and can have its symbolic logic rationalized. Barthes found the solution to this fine line of personal meaning in the form of his mother's picture. Barthes explained that a picture creates a falseness in the illusion of 'what is', where 'what was' would be a more accurate description. As had been made physical through Henriette Barthes's death, her childhood photograph is evidence of 'what has ceased to be'. Instead of making reality solid, it serves as a reminder of the world's ever changing nature.' (Wiki)

***First impression of the first UK edition, translated into English by Richard Howard, in its original dustwrapper in very good to near fine condition. The first UK edition is surprisingly uncommon and desirable. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.

Seller Inventory # 9644

Bibliographic Details

• Title: CAMERA LUCIDA - Reflections on Photography (First UK edition - first impression)
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape, London
• Publication Date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224029290
• ISBN 13: 9780224029292
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Charles Skaggs (Jacket design)
• Edition: First UK Edition
• Printing: First Impression
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • First Editions
  • Literature in Translation

About this title

Synopsis

A graceful, contemplative volume, Camera Lucida was first published in 1979. Commenting on artists such as Avedon, Clifford, Mapplethorpe, and Nadar, Roland Barthes presents photography as being outside the codes of language or culture, acting on the body as much as on the mind, and rendering death and loss more acutely than any other medium. This groundbreaking approach established Camera Lucida as one of the most important books of theory on the subject, along with Susan Sontag's On Photography.

About the Author

ROLAND BARTHES was born in 1915. A French literary theorist, philosopher, and critic, he influenced the development of schools of theory, including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, and post-structuralism. He died in 1980.