Dora — Dorothy Wordsworth, daughter of WW and MW (1804–1847)
DW — Dorothy Wordsworth (1755–1855)
John — John Wordsworth, eldest son of WW and MW (1803–1875)
MW — Mary Wordsworth, née Hutchinson, wife of WW (1770–1859)
SH — Sara Hutchinson, sister of MW (1775–1835)
STC — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and friend (1772–1834)
This image gallery explores the unstable place of the camera obscura in Romantic visual culture and offers a critical revision of Jonathan Crary’s central thesis in Techniques of the Observer (1990). In this text, Crary contends that the camera obscura is a model of rational, disembodied vision that is later subsumed by a modern, subjective mode of observation. The varied representations of the optical apparatus in the Romantic period, however, complicate his notion that the camera obscura as a principal model of observation was roundly discarded in the first quarter of the nineteenth century in favor of a conception of modern vision based on new optical technologies.
In this "View from the Balloon at its Greatest Elevation," the town of Chester (where Baldwin's aerial voyage began) and the River Dee can be glimpsed far below us, through an opening in the clouds. They seem no more substantial than marks on a coloured map, although in this case most of the map has vanished.
An illustration in a book of natural philosophy that demonstrates the many properties of air such as air pressure, floatation, hot air balloons. It also shows that the elevation achieved in a hot air balloon surpasses the highest mountains on earth.
An aerial map of rural Chester identifying the specific geographic details of Baldwin’s route during his flight.
Thomas Baldwin's "Balloon Excursion from Chester, on the eighth of September, 1785." Baldwin had earlier been unable to fund by subscription the construction of a balloon (Thébaud-Sorger 47). On this occasion he was assisted by Lunardi, who provided the balloon, prepared it for flight, and was on hand for the ascent from Chester.
The primary subject of this image is Thomas Baldwin's "Balloon Excursion," from Chester to Warrington, which it depicts just 50 minutes after it began, as seen from "a high Field, at the End of Sutton-Causeway" (iv, 29).
Editor’s note: This, the earliest published version of Dorothy Wordsworth’s “Ullswater Excursion,” appeared in 1823 in the fourth edition of her brother’s Guide to the Lakes.
