Professor Kevin Edwards, Fellow Commoner, has co-authored a major new publication that brings to light the earliest substantial photographic record of the Faroe Islands. The book, Færøerne 1894 – en fotograf kommer forbi / The Faroe Islands 1894 – a photographer comes by, is written with Steffen Stummann Hansen and published by History Press Faroe Islands.

The book centres on the work of Karl Grossmann, a German born medical doctor living in Liverpool, who visited the Faroe Islands in 1894. With a strong interest in landscape and ethnography, Grossmann was also an accomplished and enthusiastic photographer. During his visit, he captured a remarkable series of images documenting Faroese people, settlements, and landscapes at the end of the nineteenth century.

Following slide lectures in Copenhagen and London, the former provoking some controversy at the time, Grossmann deposited approximately 180 photographs with the Royal Geographical Society in London. There they remained largely unnoticed for more than a century. This new book presents many of these images for the first time, accompanied by detailed explanatory text in both Danish and English.

The collection represents the oldest known substantial corpus of photographs from the Faroe Islands and includes the earliest surviving images from the remote islands of Mykines, Svínoy, and Fugloy. As such, it offers a rare and valuable visual insight into Faroese life, geography, and material culture at a pivotal historical moment.

Published in a large format volume of 302 pages, the book contains 131 full page images and has received publication grants from the Faroe Islands, Denmark, and Sweden. It stands as an important contribution to the historical and visual record of the North Atlantic region.