E-text prepared by The Internet Archive Children’s Library, Asad Razzaki, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Note:  Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations. 
      See 14092-h.htm or 14092-h.zip: 
      (http://www.gutenberg.ne
t/dirs/1/4/0/9/14092/14092-h/14092-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.ne
t/dirs/1/4/0/9/14092/14092-h.zip)

Images of the original pages are available through the Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, PALMM Project, 2001. (Preservation and Access for American and British Children’s Literature, 1850-1869.) See http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/dl/UF00001813.jpg or http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/dl/UF00001813.pdf

THE WORLD’S FAIR

Or, Children’s Prize Gift Book of the Great Exhibition of 1851

Describing the Beautiful Inventions and Manufactures Exhibited Therein; with Pretty Stories about the People Who Have Made and Sent Them; and How They Live When at Home

London:  Thomas Dean and Son 35, Threadneedle-Street, and
Ackermann and Co. 96, Strand.

What a pretty picture we have in the first title page, of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park!  This gigantic structure is built of iron, glass, and wood; but as, at a distance, it seems to be made entirely of glass, it is called the “Crystal Palace.”  Does it not look like one of those magnificent palaces we read about in fairy tales?

The Great Exhibition is intended to receive and exhibit the most beautiful and most ingenious things from every country in the world, in order that everybody may become better known to each other than they have been, and be joined together in love and trade, like one great family; so that we may have no more wicked, terrible battles, such as there used to be long ago, when nobody cared who else was miserable, so that they themselves were comfortable.  Only look at the thousands of people who crowd the Park,—­all so different looking, and so curiously dressed.  Grave Turks,—­swarthy Spaniards and Italians,—­East Indian Princes, glistening with gold and jewels,—­clever French and German workmen, in blue cotton blouses,—­Chinese gentlemen,—­Tartars, Russians, energetic Americans, and many more.  I wonder what they all think of us, whose habits in many things are so different from their own?

And what charming things there are in the Exhibition itself!  Fine porcelain wares, mirrors, books, statues, perfumes, and many more articles from various parts of the world,—­beautiful fans, books, bronzes, and an infinity of other matters, from France in particular.  Here is a model in miniature of the Crystal Palace itself, in glass.