by Edward Ball
First published 2013
Edward Ball examines the unlikely collaboration between Eadweard Muybridge and Leland Stanford in 1870s California. Muybridge pioneered stop-motion photography, creating the foundation for cinema by capturing and replaying time for audiences. Stanford, a railroad magnate and former California governor, wanted to settle a specific question about horses in motion. He hired Muybridge to determine whether all four hooves of a galloping horse simultaneously leave the ground. Ball reveals how Muybridge was also a calculated killer whose murder trial became an early media spectacle. The author traces their partnership as it launched the era of visual entertainment. Set during California's frontier period, the book combines Muybridge's photographic experiments, his methodical approach to murder, and Stanford's entrepreneurial drive. Ball shows how their obsessions with motion, wealth, and innovation shaped American visual culture. This account from the National Book Award winner explores the darker origins of modern media through the lens of two ambitious men whose collaboration changed entertainment forever.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime, biography-memoir, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: ambitious-characters, obsession, partnership
Setting: California
Period: 1870s
447 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday
Content warnings: murder