Acknowledgments

This book is the product of more than a decade of thinking and writing about Victorian media aesthetics. It is my pleasure to thank the many institutions, archives, and individuals whose support—material, intellectual, and emotional—allowed me to do my best work. I began this project as a graduate student at the University of Chicago under the exemplary direction of Elaine Hadley, Tom Gunning, and Zach Samalin. Whatever value this book offers to readers is a testament to their brilliance, generosity, and vision. I am grateful to the faculty, staff, and students of the University of Wisconsin–Madison's (UW Madison) Departments of English, Communication Arts, and Curriculum and Instruction for encouraging the development of this book. A special thank you to department chairs Christa Olson and Erica Halverson for their advocacy and leadership. I was fortunate to complete my book on a twelve-month research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS); I would like to express my gratitude to the ACLS for their commitment to funding the work of junior and non-tenure-track scholars. UW Madison's Institute for Research in the Humanities offered me a home for that final year of writing and an extraordinary interdisciplinary community of scholars with whom to think and learn.

My research was also made possible by many knowledgeable and patient archivists. I wish particularly to thank Lewis Pollard at the National Science and Media Museum, Phil Whickham and Mike Rickard at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter, and Joss Marsh and David Francis at the Kent Museum of the Moving Image. Additional thanks to the Victoria and Albert Museum's Word and Image Center, Museum of Childhood, and National Art Library; the University of Westminster Archive; and the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University. I gratefully acknowledge the institutions that supported my archival research: the Social Science Research Council, the Midwest Victorian Studies Association, the Nicholson Center for British Studies at the University of Chicago, and the American Philosophical Society.

Working with Cornell University Press to bring this book into the world was an honor and a pleasure. Thank you to my editor Mahinder Kingra for his confidence in me and my work, for encouraging me to trust my own instincts, and for his patience and generosity every step of the way. I am also grateful to Karen Laun, Kalie Hyatt, India Miraglia, and Kristin Ashley Gregg. Enid Zafran compiled the index and Marianne L’Abbate copyedited the manuscript; I deeply appreciate their contributions. Finally, my profound thanks to the brilliant and generous peer reviewers who improved the book through their thoughtful critiques: Rachel Teukolsky, John Plotz, and Lara Kriegel.

The companionship of so many dear friends and inspiring interlocutors made the writing of this book a joy. This book is dedicated to my writing group—Grace An, Shannon Draucker, Allyson Nadia Field, Ari Gass, Katerina Korola, and Kate Nesbit—an exceptional bunch of scholars who assembled on Zoom in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and were involved in every stage of this book's composition. Of all the grace and good fortune I have been the recipient of in the last five years, it is their warmth, abundant and unceasing support, and penetrating insight into my work that I value most. Shannon Draucker and Kate Nesbit deserve special recognition for reading every chapter of the book multiple times and improving both them and me. Kaneesha Parsard read an early draft and sparked new ways of thinking about the political dimensions of the project; here and in everything I write I am trying to live up to her example as a scholar and a human. Thank you to the colleagues who provided notes on the book in the final stages: Geoffrey Adelsberg, Sarah Allison, Meredith Bak, Chris Kirchgasler, and Chelsea Silva. I am also grateful to the many audiences who critiqued this project with such care, especially the Franke Institute for the Humanities, Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Cultures Workshop, and Mass Culture Workshop at the University of Chicago; and the Film Studies Colloquium and Middle Modernity Workshop at UW Madison.

My deepest thanks to the many colleagues who discussed this project with me over coffee, on long walks, around the dinner table, and curled up in the cocktail bars of conference hotels. This book was enriched by conversations with Zarena Aslami, Bill Brown, Alexis Chema, Zara Chowdhary, Kelley Conway, Pat Day, Maud Ellman, Sarah Ensor, Frances Ferguson, Edgar Garcia, Mary-Catherine Harrison, Elizabeth Helsinger, Eric Hoyt, Priti Joshi, Andrea Korda, Josephine McDonagh, Darshana Mini, Daniel Morgan, Julie Orlemanski, Mario Ortiz-Robles, John Plotz, John Plunkett, Lisa Ruddick, Meghna Sapui, Oishani Sengupta, Bassam Sidiki, Anna-Claire Stinebring, Rachel Teukolsky, Kristin Thompson, Anne Vila, Sarah Wells, Sandy Zagarell, and David Zimmerman. A special thank you to the late David Bordwell for his friendship, conversation, and kind belief in my work. I am grateful to Ellen Perry, who solved the mystery of an eighteenth-century newspaper editorial, and to Nina Clements, who assisted me in tracking down sources. My loving gratitude to Katie and Chris Kirchgasler for accepting me as part of their family and celebrating every book milestone, and to Geoff Adelsberg and Faith Carol Newton for the blessed gift of conversation about everything but this book. Kate Vieira is a writing companion and a fount of wisdom and nonstop fun: I am thankful to her in too many ways to name.

Thank you to my parents, Howard and Rachelle, and my brother, Ben, for their loving and steadfast support; to Alli Carlisle for more than fifteen years of dearest friendship; and to all the kids who made me an auntie—Lincoln, Livia, Oren, Amália, Mak, and Teddy. Thank you to Zora, my dog, for taking me to the park every weekend. To Peter McDonald, who improved every page, delighted in every victory, and lovingly endured every crisis of faith: a simple thank you could never begin to cover it. But what sweet pleasure to write our books together. Let's do it again sometime.