The Biograph in Battle

First published in 1901 and now a rare collector’s item, this is cameraman Dickson’s diary kept during the Biograph Company’s filming on the battlefields of the Boer War. The book has now been republished in a facsimile edition, with a specially commissioned introduction from film historian Richard Brown.

It tells of one man’s absolute determination to bring back – against great odds – a filmed record of war, at a time when the medium itself was in its infancy. Dickson’s huge machine, designed by himself, weighed nearly half a ton and had to be transported everywhere in South Africa by horse-drawn cart, requiring the combined efforts of several strong men each time it had to be set up.

The book is exceptional among the handful of written accounts produced in the first years of the cinema. It is a human document, written not in a mood of quiet reflection after the event, but as a vital diary recording dangerous and difficult conditions at the Front.