RESOURCES

This section covers a wide range of resources for readers to take further their interest in Victorian cinema, or Victorian life as reflected through the projected image. Follow the links on the left-hand menu for individual sections.

WEBSITES

The websites below offer an introduction to the world of Victorian cinema, including pre-cinema and optical toys. It includes the few sites offering online moving image materials from the Victorian cinema period. Also listed separately are personal sites for Who's Who figures, and general sites on the Victorian era.

American Memory

Incomparable collection of early film clips from the Library of Congress, with substantial supporting information. Includes early Edison productions, turn-of-the-century views of New York, the origins of American animation, American variety acts, and views from the Spanish-American War. Available in streamed and downloadable forms, in MPEG, QuickTime and Real formats. In April 2009 the Library published fresh digitisations of some of the Edison titles on its new YouTube channel.

The Bioscope

The Bioscope is an information resource for early and silent cinema, in blog format. It provides news, information, events, documents, publications, discoveries and anything else on early and silent cinema (which include the 'pre-cinema' and Victorian cinema fields). Update: The Bioscope stopped adding new content in August 2012 but its archives can still be viewed online.

Chronology of Japanese Cinema

A detailed chronology of Japanese cinema 1896-1908, meticulously referenced, by Joaquín da Silva.

Il Cinema Ritrovato

Database of films shown at the renowned Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual festival of restored films held at Bologna, Italy, including many Victorian era films.

Cinematografica

Enthusiastic and knowledgeable site, from Dutch collector Michael Rogge, of cinema equipment, with a lengthy list of makes of different kinds of cameras and projectors, and many illustrations from his collection, with a number from the Victorian Cinema period. Includes the lavishly illustrated page One Hundred Years of Film Sizes.

The Complete History of the Discovery of Cinema

An ambitious attempt by Paul Burns to trace the origins of motion pictures from 900 BC through to the arrival of cinematography at the end of the 19th century. The quality of the information is variable, too often plain wrong, and does not begin to challenge a published work such as Hermann Hecht's Pre-Cinema History (1993), but the undertaking is courageous and imaginative, and the illustrations are very welcome.

Early Visual Media

Eclectic site devoted to 'early vintage visual media and their usage', created by Thomas Weynants. In practice, a large number of images relating to 'pre-cinema' themes, photography, early film, the conjuring arts, and the dance of death, and so on, idiosyncratically selected and arranged.

Film History Notes

Plainly-designed but informative and reliable notes from Australian film historian Tony Martin-Jones on the first films in Australia and India.

Giornate Database

Database of every film shown at the Giornate del Cinema Muto silent film festival, held at Pordenone, Italy, since 1982. This includes many Victorian era films, often with valuable supporting catalogue information.

LUCERNA

An online reseach resource for the magic lantern, created with great dedication and precision by Richard Crangle. It contains details and reproductions of slide sets, slide images, readings and other texts related to slide sets, lantern hardware, people and organisations involved in lantern history.

Luminous-Lint

Huge and wide-ranging collaborative site on the history of photography, with thousands of photographers cited, including biographical entries on several photographers from the Victorian era who crossed over into cinematography.

100 Years of Cinema in Europe

Well-researched site on the history of cinema exhibition in Europe, with sections devoted to France, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Hungary, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Austria and Luxembourg, giving welcome detail on production and exhibition in the earliest years for each country. In English and Italian.

Picturegoing

An extensive collection of eyewitness accounts of going to see pictures, from the 1600s to the present day, stetching from magic lanterns to cinema, televiion and streamed theatre. It includes many testimonies from the Victorian cinema era. The site is produced by Luke McKernan, co-editor of this site.

Screenonline

Impressive online encyclopdia and moving image educational resource from the British Film Institute. Combines the history of British film and television, through a complex strucuture based around themes, personalities, tours and special features. Screenonline comes with a huge number of streamed video clips, which are accessible to UK educational users only (schools, colleges and libraries). The site has not been added to since 2014.

Terra Media

A very useful site from David Fisher on the history of the media, including motion pictures, from their historical roots to the present day. It includes the Chronomedia section, a timeline of key events in the development of communications media, with some detailed annotations. There is particular emphasis on the Brighton and Hove pioneers of the Victorian/early Edwardian period.

 

The following Who's Who in Victorian Cinema entrants have web sites devoted to them:

Birt Acres - Birt Acres (1854-1918) - Film Pioneer

Thomas Edison - Thomas A. Edison Papers; Thomas Edison's Home Page; Inventing Entertainment

Alice Guy - Alice Guy Blaché

Frank Haydon and George Urry - Haydon and Urry Ltd

Burton Holmes - Burton Holmes, Extraordinary Traveller

Louis Le Prince - Louis Le Prince Collection

Siegmund Lubin - King of the Movies

Auguste and Louis Lumière - Catalogue Lumière; Institut Lumière

Etienne-Jules Marey - Étienne-Jules Marey: Movement in Light

Georges Méliès - Georges Méliès

Eadweard Muybridge - The Compleat Muybridge

Riley brothers - Willie Riley

Eugen Sandow - Eugen Sandow & The Golden Age of Iron Men

Charles Urban - Charles Urban, Motion Picture Pioneer

Gabriel Veyre - Collection Gabriel Veyre

Alfred West - 'Our Navy' - Alfred John West FRGS - Film Pioneer

 

The following websites are useful general resources for the study of Victorianism and nineteenth-century life:

American Family Immigration History Center

The British Empire

Dictionary of Victorian London

The Victorian Peeper

Victoria Research Web

The Victorian Society in America

Victorian Station

The Victorian Web