Book excerpt: Annals of My Glass House highlights the work of the most famous Victorian woman photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. Although she did not begin her career until the age of 49, after rearing six children, she produced almost 3,000 photographs from 1864 until her death in 1879. Violet Hamilton's examination of Cameron's photography begins with her first successful recorded work in 1864 and ends in 1874 with her brief autobiography, "Annals of My Glass House", included here. The major thematic categories of her work are considered, including her portraits of prominent Victorians, poetic interpretations of Madonnas and children, and illustrations for Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Among Cameron's photographs are intimate studies of her own family and powerful portraits of Victorian artists, writers, and scientists, including historian Thomas Carlyle and astronomer Sir John Herschel.