The Great Exhibition, 1851

The Great Exhibition, 1851 is the first anthology of its kind. It presents a comprehensive array of carefully selected primary documents, sourced from the period before, during and after the Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. Drawing on contemporary newspapers and periodicals, the archives of the Royal Commission, diaries, journals, celebratory poems and essays - many of them reproduced in their entirety, and in the same place, for the first time - the book provides an unparalleled resource for teachers and students of the Exhibition alike, and a starting point for researchers new to the subject.

The book is subdivided into six chapters - 'Origins and organisation', 'Display', 'Nation, empire and ethnicity', 'Gender', 'Class' and 'Afterlives' - that represent the current scholarly debates about the Exhibition. Critical introductions helpfully summarise the Exhibition and situate it within the discourse of the 'material turn' in Victorian studies, exploring the reasons why this particular event came to symbolise the age and why it continues to fascinate readers over a century and a half later. Reams of material have been sifted through in order to provide the best and most representative selection of texts. Part trade fair, part festival, part shopping mall, part art gallery and museum: what was the Great Exhibition and what did it mean? Readers of The Great Exhibition, 1851 will take great pleasure in finding out.

This sourcebook will be an invaluable teaching guide, of interest to students and lecturers in many disciplines within the humanities.