SummaryMicroscopy poses special problems of communication because it reveals completely unfamiliar images to the eye. During the eighteenth century, scientific societies, private letters and the sale of standard specimens satisfied the largely amateur interest in microscopy. The need to illustrate texts came rather later than might be expected, however, because the development of the optics of the instrument was very slow between its invention in about 1600 and the discoveries of J. J. Lister in the 1830s. In the second half of the nineteenth century the microscope increased in scientific importance, creating a need for rapid and efficient means of communicating results, to which photography and new printing techniques were essential. This development is illustrated with special reference to the publications of the Royal Microscopical Society.