Largest Photo Book Ever Published Sells for £330,000 at Auction

The largest photo book ever published sold yesterday at the Bonhams Book, Maps, Manuscripts and Historical Photographs sale in London. The book is made up of 20, un-enlarged prints of Egypt, Sinai and Jerusalem taken by renowned English photographer Francis Frith that each measure a colossal 30in x 21in. To give you some perspective, we’ve superimposed a picture of Canon’s new T4i (to scale) onto the picture from the book itself. As you can see, these are some big prints.

Originally published in 1858, the pictures inside were taken during a trip Frith took to the Middle East in 1856 using the wet collodion process. In order to get these, Frith had to cary around huge cameras, a ton of equipment, and his own mobile dark room — not to mention the caustic chemicals required for this kind of photography.

Given how much work it took Frith to create it, it seems appropriate that the book sold for as much as it did. Estimated to go for only £50,000 – £70,000, it actually ended up selling for over £330,000, or approximately $513,000 dollars… and they say print media is dying.