Light and Love: The Extraordinary Developments of Julia Margaret Cameron and Mary Hillier

Julia Margaret Cameron received her first camera at the age of forty-eight, but her love affair with the medium had already spanned several decades and continents. An enthusiast for this newly invented device, she traveled the world befriending experts—such as the astronomer John Herschel; the pioneering photographer (and her brother-in-law) Charles Somers-Cocks, 3rd Earl Somers; and the Swedish risk-taking artist Oscar Rejlander—who taught her the magic and the science of the lens.

When fourteen-year-old Mary Hillier delivered a message to Julia’s door, little did she know what her life would become. Beginning as Julia’s parlor maid, Mary went on to become the photographer’s leading model and the focus of the artist’s creative passion. For Julia, Mary personified the heavenly qualities of her quiet corner of England. For Mary, Julia’s influence would echo throughout her life. This is a biography of two women who experienced beauty, love, loss, and fame, and out of them created photographs that, in Julia’s own words “should electrify you with delight and startle the world."

Spanning the French Revolution until the 1930s, and fully illustrated throughout, Light and Love tells the story of a rare partnership of a pioneer and her muse, and how their relationship would change the course of both of their lives.