Dickinson Brothers, 1854

Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851.London: Dickinson Brothers, 1854.

First edition of Dickinson's views of the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. Great Britain's Prince Albert had proposed a trade exhibition like no other before it: truly international, with the work of nearly 14,000 exhibitors from twenty-six nations on view. Joseph Paxton designed a new type of building for the event, using the latest in cast-iron and glass technology. Located in London's Hyde Park, the landmark structure, 1848 feet long by 408 feet wide, was visited by more than six million people over the exhibition's five month tenure. Public feeling for the temporary building was so strong that it was re-erected in South London, in an enlarged form, the same year that these volumes appeared. Fire destroyed the Crystal Palace in 1936. Abbey Scenery 251

Two volumes in one box, large folio, 580 x 415mm. Text in modern wrappers; 55 loose chromolithographed plates in a cloth chemise; in a modern box.