The Magic City

300 Magnificent Views’ capturing the magic of the White City.

“A Portfolio of Original Photographic Views of the World’s Fair and its Treasures of Art including a Graphic Representation of the Famous Midway Plaisance. With Graphic Descriptions by America’s Brilliant Historical and Descriptive Writer J.W. Buell” [Front Cover]

This wonderful collection of sixteen bound portfolios was compiled by H.S. Smith and originally published weekly by the Historical Publishing Company of Philadelphia. Each is comprised of approximately 20 pages and contains numerous captioned images describing the myriad of exhibits, buildings, and attractions from the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The commemorative set is contained with its original decorative case emblazed with allegorical representing photography and artistry. The theme is explained in further detail on inside of the front cover;

“But by the aid of photography and the eloquence of genius, ‘THE MAGIC CITY” and its wonders still live, as they were and always shall be, in pictures of marvelous beauty and description that appeal to the highest and noblest sentiments of our natures. They are reproduced, just as they existed, in the hundreds of splendid photographs that adorn and beautify the pages of this great work.

The art galleries and their precious contents; the majestic buildings; the vast aggregation of the products of human genius; the lakes and the lagoons, the islands, the trees and the blushing flowers; the surging millions of happy people; the curious things of foreign countries, the quaint little ships of Columbus and the Vikings; the Midway Plaisance and its singular inhabitants – all those have been reproduced and preserved forever in the pages of this beautiful and instructive book – a lasting souvenir for the millions who were there and a permanent view of the great WORLD’s FAIR for those who could not go.”