Picturesque World's Fair, Vol. I, No. 1, Feb. 10, 1894

AnonymousProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8

Word count: 26K words
Chapters: 3

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Picturesque World's Fair, Vol. I, No. 1, Feb. 10, 1894 by AnonymousAuthor: Anonymous,Language: English, Class: T: Technology, Release Date: May 6, 2012

Editor's review

This is the public-domain electronic text of Picturesque World's Fair, Vol. I, No. 1, published February 10, 1894, the inaugural issue of an early pictorial publication on the world's fair. Its content centres on the pavilions, scenery and events of the fair of the time, part news pictorial and part guidebook, reflecting late nineteenth-century public curiosity about the fair and its ways of visual consumption. For readers studying the history of expositions, print culture, urban landscape or American social life, this material offers original narrative with the flavour of its era, useful for observing how the fairground was "drawn" in words at the time. As an anonymous publication without modern annotation, its value as historical source material exceeds its literary quality; readers should use historical context to identify its promotional tone and period limitations. Suitable for consulting as historical fragments rather than as continuous narrative reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

History readers studying late nineteenth-century exposition history and urban culture
Media researchers interested in early pictorials, printing and visual communication
Library-type readers collecting public-domain English historical e-texts
General history readers interested in details of American social life in the 1890s

Not a good fit for

General readers expecting complete, continuous narrative or literary description
Beginning researchers needing modern annotation and a scholarly introduction
Casual readers uninterested in expositions or print history

Reading tips

First check basic facts about the world's fairs around 1893 before reading, to avoid being misled by promotional descriptions.
Browse the publication as historical fragments, excerpting by pavilion or theme rather than trying to read it straight through.
Compare it with photographs and maps of the fair from the same period to observe differences between verbal description and visual material.
Note its advertising-style wording and period prejudices as material for analysing late nineteenth-century public discourse.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this publication a complete book or a single issue?

According to the information, this is Vol. I, No. 1 of Picturesque World's Fair, published February 10, 1894; it is a single issue of an inaugural nature, not a complete bound volume or full set.

Does the text include illustrations?

The information only states that it is a Project Gutenberg English electronic text and does not mention whether it includes illustrations. Plain-text electronic editions are usually text-only; for image material, look for scans of the original publication or related pictorial catalogues.

Can it be cited directly in a paper?

It can be used as a lead to primary source material, but this edition has no page collation or modern annotation. Before citing, check the original publication or an authoritative scan, and note the publication's own promotional tendency, avoiding treating descriptive wording as neutral fact.

Why is the author shown as anonymous?

The information lists the author as Anonymous, indicating that the publication was unsigned or that editorial information is unknown. This is not uncommon in popular pictorial publications; the text should be read as an institutional, collective product of its era.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is a collective designation used in English-language publishing for works whose authorship is unknown or unsigned, rather than the real name of a single author. The 716 titles attributed to this name include the Gospel of John, Psalms, Romans, Luke, Philippians, and 1 Corinthians from the World English Bible, as well as the Gospel of John and Psalms from the King James Version. Such texts are mainly religious classics and ancient folk traditions that were copied, translated, and compiled over long periods, making their original authors difficult to trace; they therefore circulated anonymously. Public information is limited, and neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be confirmed. The significance of anonymity lies in focusing attention on the works themselves rather than on authorial identity, and in reminding readers of the collective and variable nature of texts in transmission.