Customer Reviews

Joy to the World: A Victorian Christmas

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pretty much the complete history of Christmas in a nutshell is lavishly illustrated here in this beautifully colorful (and I DO mean colorful) book. Of course, the concentration here is on the 19th century-pretty much the LATE 19th century. If you want to know how our great and great great grandparents may have celebrated this glorious holiday-and how they would have SEEN this holiday-it doesn't get any better. Now for my complaint-and it is a big one-although it is only one line in the book. I shall quote it here from page 21: "The creche as a symbol of the Christ Child's birth derived from the fictitious but touching story of an adolescent Mary, great with child, and her gentle middle aged husband Joseph." FICTITIOUS? I'm sorry but that is the basis, the beginning of the whole Christian faith. Without that 'fictitious' birth...well....this is not the place for preaching. The Catholics and Protestants (and many others, I'm sure) know, though. It did put a damper on the rest of the book for me, but I will stand by my review that for the pictures and the history, it truly is excellent. The authors just have to leave out their opinions when writing on a subject that, like it or not, is very religious in nature-and, believe me, a Christmas in Victorian times is\was truly religious. That's why it got a 4 instead of a 5.

I bought this lovely book and A Victorian Scrapbook, also by Cynthia Hart, recently and what a treat both books are. Though this Christmas book is a bit smaller than the Scrapbook (check out the Product Details) it is crammed with a wonderful selection of Victorian Yuletide ephemera, mostly I assume from John Grossman's collection.

Turn the pages and be overwhelmed with a visual treat of paper Father Christmases (and here and there also called Kris Kringle) angels, cut-out Christmas trees, seasonal cards, snow scenes and more. The text covers all the myths and legends and it'll leave you with a pleasant glow before you even get to the last page. But what makes this book rather special is the production. There plenty of books that cover an old-fashioned Christmas but very few look as good as this one. From the embossed cover, with a die-cut shape, end-papers (with a space to fill in a name) title spread, Contents and the rest of the book, everything is considered: typography; layout; printing and paper, it all comes together to make the perfect book.

A Yuletide treat!

***SEE INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

This book is great for both Decopauge and Christmas collections. It is also full of for Victorian images. I recommend it to anyone

This was a great book. I collect antique post cards, so I love the photographic collages the author makes using post cards, die cuts, antiques, and real flowers. Most beautiful.