Florence's discovery notwithstanding, it was Daguerre's process that would produce the world's first practical means of taking photographs.
Summaries of Daguerre's process were published shortly after his presentation to the French Académie des sciences in January of 1839 (in a surprisingly wide range of periodicals, all of which are now very rare and seldom seen in the marketplace). It was only after the French government bought Daguerre's patent (in exchange for a lifetime pension) and made his process a gift "Free to the World" on 19 August 1839 that the publishing floodgates opened:
Books like History and practice of photogenic drawing on the true principles of the daguerréotype: with the new method of dioramic painting: secrets purchased by the French government, and by their command published for the benefit of the arts and manufactures / by the inventor L.J.M. Daguerre managed to reach a third English-language edition before the end of 1839.
The partnership originally created between Daguerre and Niépce had stipulated that [i]n the eventuality of one of the partners demise, this one will be replaced in the company for the rest of the ten years that would not be expired, by his natural heir. Thus, after Niépce's death in 1833 his position in the partnership was assumed by his son, Isidore. Isidore made no real contributions to this partnership, and Daguerre took advantage of this by heavily promoting his own process to the detriment of Nicephore Niépce's original discoveries in heliography. Although the French government awarded a lifetime pension of 4000 francs to both Isidore and Daguerre, it was Daguerre's process that received near instant, worldwide fame.
Seeking to avenge the slight to his father, Isidore published in 1841 a pamphlet titled History of the discovery improperly misnamed daguerreotype, preceded by a note from its real inventor Joseph-Nicephore Niépce.
Thus began the long process to rehabilitate the name of Niépce in the annals of photography. But both Niépce and Daguerre would be overshadowed by an Englishman, whose book (published just three years after the publication of Isidore's pamphlet) would become one of the most influential books ever published in photography....
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