Muybridge, Eadweard. Muybridge: Man in Motion by Robert Haas.

University of California Press, 1976. [Excellent biography of Eadweard Muybridge, covering all phases of his career, including landscape photography, motion photography, his trial for the murder of his wife's lover, etc.; profusely illustrated.] Fine in hardcover with near fine price clipped dust jacket (no chips or tears). Summary:

Muybridge: Man in Motion (1976), published by the University of California Press, is a seminal biographical study written by cultural historian and academic Robert Bartlett Haas. The 207-page monograph stands as one of the definitive twentieth-century scholarly accounts documenting the tumultuous life, engineering feats, and lasting cultural legacy of the eccentric, English-born pioneer of motion photography, Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904).

The biography untangles the complex historical threads of Muybridge's career, framing him as a crucial technological link between fixed-frame photography and the birth of cinema.

Core Themes & Content

• Deconstructing the Stanford Collaboration: Haas focuses extensively on the brilliant, yet highly volatile, working relationship between Muybridge and railroad tycoon and former California Governor Leland Stanford. The text carefully analyzes the mechanics of the historic 1878 Palo Alto experiments, where Muybridge used an intricate network of tripwire-activated cameras to definitively prove that a galloping horse lifts all four hooves off the ground simultaneously.

• Sifting Fact from Myth: A major contribution of Haas's scholarship is his meticulous effort to untangle different versions of the Palo Alto trials. He contextualizes the project beyond the famous, arguably apocryphal $25,000 wager regarding equine locomotion, exploring instead how the collaboration fueled the distinct, competing egos and ambitions of both men.

• The Blueprint of Moving Pictures: The monograph traces Muybridge's transition from capturing instantaneous still images to projecting them. Haas chronicles the invention and exhibition of the zoopraxiscope—a pioneering device that projected painted sequences from spinning glass discs—positioning Muybridge as a definitive godfather of moving image projection long before the advent of flexible film strips.

• The Landscape Artist and Transience: While celebrated for his motion studies, the book highlights Muybridge’s multi-faceted mastery of early photographic processes. Haas details his early commercial success in San Francisco under the pseudonym "Helios," his dramatic landscape portfolios of Yosemite Valley, and his historic documentary commissions in the newly acquired Alaskan Territory and during the Modoc War.

• A Life of Melodrama: Haas does not shy away from the darker, deeply erratic chapters of Muybridge's personal history. The narrative covers the severe 1860 stagecoach accident that left Muybridge with lasting head injuries—permanently altering his behavioral patterns—and thoroughly documents his sensational 1875 murder trial and subsequent acquittal for the killing of his wife’s lover, Harry Larkyns.

Muybridge: Man in Motion acts as a vital, highly organized historical corrective. Rather than reducing his subject to a cartoonish Victorian eccentric, Haas treats Muybridge as an industrial-era vanguard whose obsession with dividing time into fractions forever changed how humanity visually interprets physical reality, science, and fine art.