“Victoria” is focused on the Great Exhibition for the finale this Sunday. Don’t miss it, and don’t miss our book on the photography of that event!

As fans of “Victoria” on PBS Masterpiece, we were pleased to note that the season 3 finale focuses on the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, held in the magnificent “Crystal Palace” erected in Hyde Park for that event.

See the preview HERE.

We worried that the show had skipped over the Great Exhibition when they focused on the London cholera outbreak of 1854 a few episodes back. Apparently they were just taking poetic license with the chronology in order to end with a bang on Albert’s great contribution and the historic event itself.

If you’re a fan of the show, or interested in the Victorian period, check out Anthony Hamber’s groundbreaking study of the photographic record, Photography and the 1851 Great Exhibition, published in 2018 by Oak Knoll Press and V&A Publishing.

The Great Exhibition was the genesis of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Published in part to to accompany the opening of the V&A Photography Centre, this book makes extensive use of the V&A collections and archival material related to the 1851 Great Exhibition.

“Any student of early photography — or of the international exposition housed in the famous Crystal Palace in London — will covet this magisterial work of careful scholarship and beautiful bookmaking.”

— Michael Dirda,
The Washington Post

Now at a special price through Sunday, March 10. Click HERE.

In the NY Times, Simon Critchley explores the mysteries of Athens with Kostas Staikos as guide, (while Oak Knoll holds a Staikos sale)…

Konstantinos Sp. Staikos has been an authority on the history of the library for over 30 years and has had a close relationship with Oak Knoll Press, publishing 18 titles with us since 2000. He is featured in Simon Critchley’s opinion series for the New York Times, “The Stone,” as Critchley’s expert guide in three columns headed “Athens in Pieces”: “The Art of Memory” (Jan. 30), “The Stench of the Academy” (Feb. 6), and “In Aristotle’s Garden” (Feb. 18.). (Click HERE to read the articles.)

(Coincidentally — I promise! — we are having a one-week sale of the remarkable books authored by Staikos and published with Oak Knoll, at discounts up to 50% off. Browse the sale HERE.)

Critchley’s third column ends, “I saw the ground was littered with tiny delicate snail shells, no bigger than a fingernails, scattered like empty scholars’ backpacks. My partner gave me one, and I put it in my pocket. I had it on my desk right in front of me as I was writing this. Inadvertently, I crushed it to pieces under the weight of one of Mr. Staikos’s huge tomes on the history of libraries. There’s probably a moral in this, but it escapes me.”

Indeed!

A Discovery on the Josef Halfer Assembly Line

As intern Erin Evans and I were tipping in swatches created by Dick Wolfe for Josef Halfer and the Revival of the Art of Marbling Paper, we came across a Chevron pattern swatch with a “recipe” on the back in Dick’s hand. We sit down once a week to complete a few dozen more copies, carefully inserting 17 unique swatches in each. We’re making good progress and will have them all done soon, keeping an eye out for any more notes as we go.

– Matthew