The Horse in Motion As Shown by Instantaneous Photography with a Study on Animal Mechanics Founded on Anatomy and the Revelations of the Camera in Which is Demonstrated the Theory of Quadrupedal Locomotion

Boston: James R. Osgood. Good with no dust jacket; Frontispiece and title page professionally . repaired at margins, gift inscription on front flyleaf, cup ring and white . paint stains on title page, pages toned.. 1882. Hardcover. Nicely rebound in brown cloth with gilt-stamped leather spine labels. Top edges gilt. 127 pages of text and 107 plates, including five heliotypes and 9 color plates illustrating equine anatomy. Preface by Leland Stanford. Photo of book before rebinding laid in. An important book in both the history of photography and equine literature with a fascinating back story about how it was researched and written. Railroad baron, California Governor, and horse racing mogul Leland Stanford (he also bankrolled the founding of Stanford University) had a wager with some of his horse racing buddies about whether all four hooves left the ground at a point during a horse's trot. Stanford hired antiquarian bookseller-turned-photographer Eadweard Muybridge to provide photographic evidence of this split-second event, which he did in 1872 with an elaborate set-up of multiple cameras and other equipment. In 1874, Muybridge shot and killed his wife's lover and was embroiled in a dramatic court battle (bankrolled by Stanford) in which he pleaded insanity based on severe head injuries received from an earlier stagecoach accident, but which the jury decided was deserving of an acquittal as a justifiable homicide. Muybridge continued his equine photography projects for his benefactor until the present volume was published, in which Muybridge's photographs were used as a basis for most of the illustrations, but which only briefly mentions his name in the preface and appendix. Muybridge later published his landmark and comprehensive Animal Locomotion series in eleven volumes (Parr and Badger, vol. 1, p. 52). This 1887 opus contained 781 plates of animals and humans in various actions and contributed greatly to scientific and artistic knowledge of anatomy and movement. ; Folio 13" - 23" tall .