This broad historical survey ranges from developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the inventive attempts of nineteenth-century British publishers to achieve cheap, effective color printing, to the pioneering work of the firm Thomas Nelson and Sons. A catalog of more than 1000 British and foreign views published by the firm in their own distinctive technique, the Nelson print, is also provided. This book links these developments to the wider scientific, cultural and social currents of the period.