"In the late nineteenth century, the development of a relatively new invention - the moving picture - dramatically changed visual culture. Films not only captured the public imagination, they altered the way the world was represented to and received by an eager viewing audience. This book explores the history of visual media in Britain during this key period, when the nineteenth century was closing and the twentieth just beginning." "Lynda Nead shows in this innovative study how in this period a transformation occurred from stasis to movement across the entire range of visual media, including painting, photography and film as well as stage music, lantern pictures, early film posters and astronomy. She looks at the effects of this transformation from a wide variety of perspectives, demonstrating how the idea of motion haunted all visual media and altered both viewers' expectations of the image and their modes of perception. Nead portrays a fascinating cultural landscape in the midst of change, filling in the details with a rich selection of illustrations and with a series of explorations into such unexpected territories as the representation of the everyday and the detective camera; the mobilised vision created by the motor car in rural England; the strip; the astronomical imagination - and more."--Jacket.