Buy this book on-line

COLQUHOUN**, KATE: : A THING IN DISGUISE: THE VISIONARY LIFE OF JOSEPH PAXTON.[Author SIGNED copy.]

LONDON.FOURTH ESTATE,2003.

ISBN 0007143532.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,author SIGNED,1st edn. /NFINE.No owner inscrptn,but author's neat,handwritten grey/black ink signature - without dedication - to title page,and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp, generally clean,matt,pale beige background with subject's sepia biographical photograph to upper panel,colour image of lily-pad+flowers to rear panel,red+grey lettering; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners.Majority of creasing with several small nicks and closed tears - no loss - to top edges, corners minisculely bumped with slight rubbing; to the foot of spine/backstrip to rear panel's spine/backstrip's gutter-edge of dw/dj,has a small triangular piece missing.Top+fore-edges whilst slightly aged/toned - as usual/normal - is generally bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound,though book is very slightly cocked.No dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - possibly unread? Bright,crisp,clean, sharp-cornered,publisher's original,plain dark green cloth bds with bright,crisp, stamped silver gilt letters to spine/ backstrip,red+green striped headband,and immaculate sepia illustrated eps.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,author SIGNED,1st edn,xipp+2- 307pp [paginated] includes b/w Plan map of Chatsworth showing Paxton's additions,a prologue,Pts 1-3 comprising 25 chapters, b/w chapter headpieces,several b/w illus throughout the text and the book,16pp contemporary,colour illustrations+sepia photographs in 2 blocks of 8pp apiece, between pp84/5 and pp212/13 respectively, appendix,notes,a note on currency, acknowledgements,a select bibliography, picture credits and an index.Plus [unpaginated] half-title page,author SIGNED title page,a prose extract (from Oscar and Lucinda,by Peter Carey),b/w vignetted (watering-can) dedication, contents list/table and Pts separator pages.Loosely laid in,is an ephemeral, Adult's Admission ticket to the National Zoological Gardens,Dehiwala,Sri Lanka,with programme of Performances listed to obverse. In the 19thC,which witnessed a revolution in horticulture,urban planning and architecture,Joseph Paxton,a man with no formal education,strode like a colossus. Head gardener at Chatsworth by the age of twenty-three,and encouraged by the sixth Duke of Devonshire whose patronage soon flourished into the defining friendship of his life,Paxton set about transforming this Derbyshire estate into the greatest garden in England.Visitors there were astonished by the enormous glasshouses and ambitious waterworks he built,the collection of orchids,the largest in all England,the dwarf bananas and the gargantuan lily,the trees and plants brought back from all over the world.Queen Victoria came to marvel and,increasingly, with the development of the railway in which Paxton was involved,daytrippers from all over the country. It was the Crystal Palace,home of the Great Exhibition in 1851,that secured Paxton's fame.His design,initially doodled on a piece of blotting paper,was the architectural triumph of its time.Two thousand men worked for eight months to complete it.It was six times the size of St Paul's Cathedral,enclosed a space of eighteen acres,and entertained six million visitors.By the time of his death fourteen years later,'the busiest man in England' according to Dickens,was friends with Brunel and Stephenson and in constant demand to design public parks and gardens. One of his last,seemingly most eccentric projects was for a Great Boulevard under glass,a crystal arcade that would connect all the main railway termini in London. Drawing on thousands of Paxton's personal letters,Kate Colquhoun's remarkable biography is a compelling story of a man who typifies the Victorian ideal of self- improvement and a touching portrait of one of that era's great heroes. Since April 2013,again in March 2015,and in this year too,the UK Post Office has altered it's Pricing in Proportion template,altering its prices,weight allowances,dimensions and lowered its qualifying compensation rates too! So,please contact seller,because of the value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,author SIGNED,1st edn.
Author SIGNED - without dedication.

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.