1844 - The Pencil of Nature is the first commercially published book to include photographs

William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature was described by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as “a milestone in the art of the book greater than any since Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type.“

It was published by Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans in six installments between 1844 and 1846. The book detailed Talbot’s development of the calotype photographic process and included 24 calotype prints, each one pasted in by hand, illustrating some of the possible applications of the new technology. Talbot planned a large number of installments; however, the book was not a commercial success and he was forced to terminate the project after completing only six.