Table of Contents
Author's Note xiii
Prologue 1
Part 1 The Crime (1890-1891)
The Train (September 16, 1896) 9
Marking Time (October 20-November 11, 1890) 15
Edison's Newest Wonder (December 1890-May 1891) 25
Part 2 Europe (1866-1880)
Letters of Introduction (1866) 35
Gods Own Country (1866-1869) 43
Silver and Salt (1841-1854) 51
War (1870-1871) 61
Buried Alive (1870-1871) 71
Washed Ashore at the Lizard (1870-1873) 77
Parenthesis: Occident in Motion (Sacramento, California, 1873) 81
Artists (1875-1878) 89
The Spark (c. 1880) 95
The New World (1881-1882) 101
Part 3 To America and Back (1882-1 887)
Parenthesis: WKL (1879) 111
Louisiana Centennial (1882-1885) 117
A Gun That Kills Nothing (1880-1885) 123
Shadows Walking on the Walls (1885-1886) 131
The Wizard's Tower (1884-1886) 145
Life on Glass (1886) 155
Thomas A. Edison Can Go to Hell (1886-1887) 171
Keeping Clear of the Sharks (1887) 179
Part 4 The First Film (1887-1888)
The Starting Point of All Motion (May-August 1887) 185
A Man Walks around a Corner (August 1887) 193
"Investigators" at Woodhouse Lane (January 1888) 203
The Muybridge Lecture (February 1888) 213
Haggard Miles of Half-Buried Houses (March 1888) 219
A Sewing Machine, Multiplied by Three (Spring and Summer 1888) 223
A Yorkshire Summer (Summer 1888) 229
Roundhay Garden Scene (October 8-14, 1888) 233
Marey, Le Prince, and Dickson (October 15-November 29, 1888) 241
Part 5 Motion Pictures (1889-1901)
Transparent, Flexible, and Unbreakable (November and December 1888) 249
Edison and Marey (Spring, Summer, and Fall 1889) 259
I Shall Be with You All in Mind (Christmas 1889) 265
A Trick of the Light (1890) 269
The Jumel Mansion (1890) 277
Dijon (September 16, 1890) 281
Dickson DX (1891-1895) 289
Cinema (1895-1901) 297
Adolphe (1897-1901) 303
The Fathers of the Movies (1902-2020) 311
Coda: The Drowned Man (October 1890) 321
Acknowledgments 335
Notes 339
Selected Bibliography 363
Index 375