'As entertaining as it is edifying, Reading the Cinematograph showcases the transformative presence - and role - of cinema in British short fiction at the turn of the twentieth century. Andrew Shail has devised a marvelous format for the occasion; eight stories, reprinted in full and accompanied by their original illustration, followed by valuable critical commentary by eminent film scholars, ... Read moreand framed by Shail's indispensable historical/ critical introduction and sure editorial hand. A work of impeccable and imaginative scholarship...' Maria DiBattista, Professor of English and Chair of the Film Studies Committee, Princeton University, and author of Fast Talking Dames (Yale UP) `... the volume sustains an unbroken fascination with the wider implications of emergent cinematic technologies and modes of representation. It accurately reflects the widely felt cultural significances that were attributed to moving pictures and therefore will be valuable reading for cultural historians of the period as well as historians of cinema.' (Victorian Studies. Volume 54, No. 5, Summer 2012) Show Less