“The Busiest Man in England” A Life of Joseph Paxton, Gardener, Architect & Victorian Visionary

by Kate Colquhoun
David R. Godine, Publisher

Paxton was a Victorian dynamo who rose from relatively humble beginnings to become a major figure in British society, first as head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, later as a publisher of horticultural periodicals and books, and ultimately as a member of Parliament. His most noteworthy achievement as an architect was certainly the Crystal Palace of the Great Exposition in 1851, a vast structure of cast iron and glass, erected first in Hyde Park and later rebuilt in expanded form at Sydenham, where it stood until fire destroyed it in 1937. I treated the design in the classic Godine manner, setting it in Bulmer and Snell Roundhand, making the text formal, a touch decorative, but not an outright Victorian pastiche.

Hardcover with jacket, 6 × 9"