Customer Reviews

A Victorian Scrapbook

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Cynthia Hart seems to have a knack of editing exquisite titles about Victoriana. I bought this book recently together with her lovely Christmas edition: Joy to the World: A Victorian Christmas and both books cover their subject beautifully with some quite stunning visual goodies, all wrapped up with lovely page designs and printing.

The Victorian age was renowned for printed material that would now seem over-the-top with detail but this is why it looks so lovely and colorful. Open any page and you'll see a cornucopia of printed matter rich in pictorial and typographic detail and a heavy dose of sentimentality. All this was produced long before photography got involved in commercial art so artists would create extravagant graphics for companies eager to sell their wares.

The seven chapters look at anything that might be found in the average Victorian home, especially if it involved fashion, children, games and romance. I was fascinated in the chapter on gardening and horticulture, illustrated with a selection of flowers (and roses in particular) angels in gardens and succulent pictures of fruit.

The book obviously covers American Victoriana but there is an English book with the same title: Victorian Scrapbook (The Robert Opie Collection), edited by Robert Opie with over a thousand items from his packaging museum. The book has themed spreads (magazines, well-known brands, beauty products, die-cut scraps, toys and games, travel, royalty for example) all presented on large spreads which are fifteen inches deep. It's really an expanded British version of Hart's book.

If you like the delightful and sentimental whimsy of the Victorian age both books cover it perfectly.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

This is another good book with excellent Victorian images. It is chocked full of good ideas

For those who love Cynthia Hart's lavish Victoriana calendars, buying A VICTORIAN SCRAPBOOK is like buying a dozen of those calendars, all at once. Here the artist and her collaborators, John Grossman and Priscilla Dunhill, have designed a volume inspired by the scrapbooks kept by ladies during the Victorian era. To turn the pages of this big hardcover book is to be met, as in the calendars, with image upon image of roses, pansies, ribbon and lace, cameo pins, cherubic children, lovely ladies with their silks and perfumes, gracious gentlemen with their waistcoasts and top hats, lockets, adorable animals, lillies of the valley, and colorful Victorian "scrap." A VICTORIAN SCRAPBOOK takes the reader back to an era in which even cigarette boxes were works of art. The smoothly written text by Ms. Dunhill examines such Victorian institutions as home and family, gardens, steam travel, courtship, marriage, and the self-made man. This is a book that will be loved and looked at time and again by admirers of Hart's work. It is the ultimate book for lovers of Victoriana.

My books is about thread bare from all the times I have used it as a resource for Victorian programs that I present at a beautiful mansion museum. The photographs are too beautiful for words and the book is well written and divided into great topics. Well worth the money, you'll never regret ordering this exciting book.

This book was advertised as new. When it arrived, it did not look new. The front cover had a lot of indentions in it, as if someone had been drawing or writing heavily, using the book as a desk. Inside, some of the pages had sand/dirt on them, which was easily brushed away. The dust cover had several small tears - I believe the ad mentioned one. Inside, except for the dirt/sand I found, the pages appeared intact and unread. It was acceptable as "like new" or "nearly new," but definitely not "new." I did not contact the merchant as there was no time to replace it as it was a Christmas gift.

The book itself was acceptable. What I find not acceptable is that it was advertised as new and in better condition than it was. It's not likely that I will order from this merchant again.