Nadar, whose real name was Felix Tournachon (1820-1910), was a conspicuous, even astonishing presence in nineteenth-century France. Engaging and quick-witted, he invented himself over and over as a bohemian writer, a journalist, a romantic utopian, a caricaturist, a portrait photographer, a balloonist, an entrepreneur, a prophet of aeronautics. The name "Nadar" was on everyone's lips.

Today, it is Nadar's photography that is remembered. His sitters, who were often his friends, included the great men and women of his time: Dumas, Rossini, Baudelaire, Sarah Bernhardt, Daumier, Berlioz, George Sand, Delacroix.

Nadar's legendary name has been attached not only to his original photographs but to reprints, copies and a great deal of studio work. For that reason, this volume exactingly reproduces some one hundred photographs from the years 1854-60, the period of his earliest and finest photography, allowing viewers to become familiar with the subtle light and balanced, velvety tones that distinguish Nadar's original work. Accompanying the photographs are essays that shed new light on the many facets of Nadar.