Picture Book of Authentic Mid-Victorian Gas Lighting Fixtures: A Reprint of the Historic Mitchell, Vance & Co. Catalog, ca. 1876, with Over 1000 Illustrations

Dover Publications, Inc. has been known for decades for reprinting out-of-print, often arcane, books and ephemera and releasing them at affordable prices, usually in paperback editions. Though some of these are classic books that are simply out of copyright, many others are technical works and trade manuals that have proved invaluable to modern hobbyists and craft professionals. However, even the Dover publications can fall out of print, making them rare themselves. This copy of Dover’s "Picture Book of Authentic Mid-Victorian Gas Lighting Fixtures" falls into all these categories. It is a reprint of a catalog of gas fixtures and fittings the Michell, Vance & Co. manufacturing company issued sometime between 1870 and 1877--minus one full-color plate but with the addition of a scholarly introduction by architectural historian Denys Peter Myers. The Dover edition was originally published in 1984 and is no longer in print. It includes over a thousand fine black-and-white engravings of everything from basic brass connectors to ornate lamps and chandeliers. According to Myers, this catalogue makes up the great majority of the items Mitchell, Vance & Co., which was one of the premier makers of such goods in the country, produced at the time. These are the fixtures that appeared in some of the grandest buildings of the last half of the nineteenth century, in and out of New York, such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Grand Opera House of 1873 in New York, Chicago’s Palmer House, and Harvard’s Memorial Hall, though plenty of the simpler fixtures shown here would have been happily at home in middle class dining rooms. One might ask who would want a book like this. Anyone interested in Victorian décor or Victoriana more generally, that’s who, but it could also prove very useful, not simply interesting, to theatre or film set designers, or architects restoring historic sites, or other professionals for whom historical accuracy is at a premium. Our copy is in "Fine" condition, with a few tiny laws that keep us just short of listing it as "As New." It is a first edition of a 1984 release, and there is some tanning of the cover, particularly on the inside, and very slight curling of the boards. There are minor bumps at the top and bottom of the spine and to the front corners of the cover. However, the pages are still quite bright and unblemished, and the binding is still tight and square, with no lose pages. A press release from Dover Publications, Inc. about the publication of the book is laid in inside the front cover. Photos forthcoming or on request if you are in a hurry.…