Roger Fenton's Crimean Letterbooks

This website publishes faithful reproductions and transcripts of letters sent originally by Roger Fenton and subsequently copied out by family and friends during his "Photographic Trip to the Crimea" in 1855. The Crimean War, which lasted from 1853 to 1856, was fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula and it was the first war to be covered systematically by photographers and newspaper reporters. During his 4 month trip, Roger Fenton took 360 photographs, including the famous "valley of the shadow of death" picture and wrote numerous letters home. Twenty five of these letters have survived in the form of two letter books, one is Annie Grace Fenton's letter book and another is Joseph Fenton's letter book.

This website is a result of a collaborative project initiated by De Montfort University, using the two surviving letter books in the collections of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, now the National Media Museum. This is the first occasion that all the surviving letters have been published in full.

The site allows visitors to compare different versions of the same letter, or compare the handwritten version with its transcript, search the letters for specific content and and follow links to US Library of Congress copies of Fenton's photographs of places, people and events described in the letters. The site is maintained by Professor Stephen Brown, De Montfort University.