Richard Abel

Especially over the past thirty years, serious research on early cinema has blossomed as never before. This rapid growth has included the establishment of international organizations such as Domitor (founded in 1987), with its biannual conferences; film festivals such as Le Giorante del cinema muto (established in Pordenone, Italy, in 1984); the centenary celebrations of cinema’s emergence (in 1994–6); and a host of publications, culminating with the release by Routledge of the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (2005) (reissued in a revised paperback edition in 2010). Meer

Presents the history of French cinema between 1896 and 1914, particularly during the years when Pathe-Freres, the first major corporation in the industry, led the world in film production and distribution. Meer

The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema, now in a new paperback edition, is a unique one-volume reference work which explores the first 25 years of cinema's development, from the early 1890s to the mid-1910s. Meer

Demonstrates how crucial French films were in making 'going to the movies' popular in the United States, first in vaudeville houses and then in nickelodeons. Meer