Using dramatic lighting and a soft-focus lens, Cameron made mesmerizing psychological portraits that exhibit an intensity of emotion not often publicly revealed in Victorian society. Her portraits of women are variously defiant, forthright, melancholy, or languidly sensual, offering, when seen together, an unexpectedly complex view of the photographer and her time.

The superb photographs, reproduced here in color and duotone, are complemented by an engrossing text. There are three essays: one by Sylvia Wolf on the artist and her work; another on the literary culture of Cameron's time by Phyllis Rose; and a third on Cameron's photographic illustrations of Tennyson's epic poem Idylls of the King by Debra N. Mancoff. The book also includes biographies of Cameron's female sitters by Stephanie Lipscomb, a short essay on the sale of Cameron's work, and an appendix on Cameron's mythological and literary subjects their significance to the Victorians.