Does anybody know of a good book about the Great Exhibition of 1851, and/or the Crystal Palace? (That’s almost twenty years before this novel will take place, but I think I’d like to make use of it in the backstory.)
I don’t know a book, but I know the V&A has an entire room devoted to it, so they may have published a book about it…
I’ll definitely be hitting up the V&A when I next visit.
If you’re a visual person, the Japanese manga series “Emma” has several issues that prominently feature depictions of the Crystal Palace, and to a lesser extent, the Great Exhibition, and talk about what’s contained in both, the prices to get in, and the social implications thereof.
Plus they’re an amusing read for a mundane (no aliens, magic, or mecha) Victorian love story.
I think at the moment what I need is nonfiction on the topic, but that sounds like a fun read to keep in mind for later.
Ah, if you were only here: I could take you to the Lit & Phil, where they have the original catalogues plus a collection of contemporary books. Absent that opportunity, there’s a brief booklist at the bottom of this page from the V&A…
Oh jeez. If I let myself get into the original catalogues, I’ll never get out again. <g> The booklist is very handy, though; thanks.
I’d recommend Jeffrey Auerbach’s The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display. I read it awhile ago, but as I recall it gives a nice overview of the workings of the exhibition as well as examining its cultural significance.
Thanks!
A bit of entirely relevant trivia:
Crystal Palace FC is a professional football (soccer) team formed in 1905 (for the moment, as the club is in administration — the UK equivalent of bankruptcy reorganization) from the amateur Crystal Palace FC, which was in turn founded half a century earlier by groundskeepers from the Great Exhibition.
The point behind this is that the club’s official history almost certainly has both illustrations and other material that will prove unique.
— Jaws
I am highly amused that the groundskeepers founded their own football team. 🙂
Crystal Palace book
J R Piggott, Palace of the People: The Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 1854-1936 (London: Hurst, 2004)–a bit dry, but lots of info and pix, and it does in fact go back to the original building in 1851
Ian Leith, Delamotte’s Crystal Palace: A Victorian Pleasure Dome Revealed (English Heritage, 2005)–great photos
Hermoine Hobhouse, The Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition: Art, Science and Productive Industry (Continuum, 2002)–on the 1851 exhibition and subsequent development of the museums in South Kensington
Re: Crystal Palace book
Thanks, O anonymous commenter! I appreciate not just the titles, but the notes on each one; it helps to know what the different books offer.
You might want to compare notes with author Liz Maverick whose recent urban fantasy Crimson and Steam strongly featured the Crustal Palace and 1851 in the novel. She seemed to have done a lot of research on the subject.
