The mercury visions of Louis Daguerre

Smith, Dominic, 1971-2018

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Summary

In 1839, Louis Daguerre's invention took Paris and the world by storm. A decade later, he is sinking deep into delusions brought on by exposure to mercury, the very agent that allowed his daguerreotype process. Believing that the world will end within one year, he creates his 'Doomsday list,' ten items he must photograph before the final day. It includes Isobel Le Fournier, a woman he has always loved but has not seen in half a century. Paris in 1847 was a city of Bohemian excess and social unrest. Poets and dandies crowded cafès to debate politics and art; the garrets were rife with revolutionary talk and gun smoke. It is into this strange and beguiling world that Louis Daguerre sets off to capture his doomsday images with the help of the womanizing poet Baudelaire, and a beautiful but jaded prostitute named Pigeon. As Daguerre counts down the days to The End, he is confronted by both the demons of his past and a new chance to win the heart and mind of the only woman he's ever loved.