(Exhibitions – London 1851) (Tallis, John)
Tallis’s history and description of the Crystal Palace, and the Exhibition of the World’s Industry in 1851 ; illustrated by beautiful steel engravings, from original drawings and daguerreotypes by Beard, Mayall, etc. etc.
London and New York, “printed and published by John Tallis & Co” nd (1851-4 ?).
Full Description
4to. 3 vols in 2. (2) + iii + (1) + pp iii-268, folding steel-engraved frontispiece, (53) steel-engraved plates (of which one appears to be inserted from an unconnected publication) ; (2) + iii + (1) + 262pp, (41) steel-engraved plates ; (2) + ii + (2) + 110pp, (45) steel-engraved plates. Contemporary quarter calf, cloth sides, neatly rebacked using original spines.
The quarto edition of Tallis’s illustrated publication on the Great Exhibition of 1851, issued in parts over a period ending in 1854 (the opening of the Crystal Palace at its new site at Sydenham in June 1854 is mentioned at the end of the third volume). It has the merit that a number of the plates are accurately reproduced from daguerreotype photographic views, with the result that the various panoramic views of the interior are particularly reliable, as are the images of some of the more interesting exhibits. There is also an extensive and well-written accompanying text. The collation of the plates is made difficult by the fact that they are unnumbered and by the inaccuracy of the printed lists of illustrations provided at the front of each volume (these omit some plates that are present and call for other plates which may not have been issued), and our judgment is that the number of plates probably varies from copy to copy ; the present copy seems to contain a more or less complete set, but is without the plates showing the opening and closing ceremonies held in 1851, and does not have the colour frontispiece sometimes found.