04.28.06
W.K.L. Dickson’s Memoir of the Birth of Cinema
Just arrived in my mailbox is a thin but precious volume that I strongly recommend to any and all film geeks: History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kineto-Phonograph by W.K.L. Dickson and his sister, Antonia Dickson. Published in 1895, when motion pictures were barely two years old, it is the first history of cinema ever. Mr. W.K.L. Dickson, as readers of this blog have prolly grokked, was the man most responsible for the ostensibly Edison invention of movies, and the book (really more of a monograph) is his profusely illustrated personal memoir of the voyage of discovery.
No (alas), I did not buy an original edition, but instead procured something arguably even better: MoMA’s facsimile edition of Mr. Dickson’s own personal copy, complete with his own handwritten annotations. (Dickson’s copy was obtained by MoMA in 1940, but the date of his notes is apparently not known. Fwiw, Dickson died in 1935.) MoMA’s facsimile edition was first published in 2000; my copy happens to be from the second edition of 2001.
Among the many juicy anecdotes and revelations is the amazing statement, in Dickson’s handwritten notes, that synchronized sound film was first projected in the Edison labs in 1889. Holy crap! This claim is followed by “See journals and witnesses.” Wouldst that I knew the current disposition of his journals.
Suffice to say, you owe it to yourself to get a copy while they’re still cheap (starting at a measly $4 according to tonight’s search of BookFinder.com).
