Catalogue of the Exhibition 'Albert Smith. The Spectacle of Mount Blanc and Other Adventures for Sale', Museo Nazionale della Montagna, Torino, 2018

Catalogue of exhibition about Albert Smith, his journey to the Mount Blanc, the conference-shows he set up following his return in England and the effects they had on the collective imagination of the middle classes in the mid nineteenth century, promoting alpine mountaineering and tourism. Including a series of essays about resources, history of Albert Smith, history of mountaineering and coverage in press and popular culture: Introduction from the curator and editor Aldo Audisio, about the impact of Albert Smith's performances on the British audiences and British alpine tourism; essay by Darren Bevin about Albert Smith's travel and novels, Mont Blanc shows, panoramas, and his sources of inspiration, the popularisation of the Alps, the birth of Alpine mountaineering and Thomas Cook, analysis of his three notebooks; aritle by Alessandra Ravelli about coverage of Mont Blanc in journals and periodicals; article by Ulrich Schadler about Albert Smith's panoramas, board games and merchandising; articles by Angelo Recalcati, Laure Decomble and Lucinda Perrillat-Boiteux, Veronica Lisino, Donata Pesenti Campagnoni, Tony Astill, Francesca Villa, Roberto Mantovani, Leonardo Bizzaro. Also including images and detailed commentary of items on display in the exhibition relating to the Mount Blanc: paintings, panoramas, music scores, picture cards, postcards, artefacts, etchings and lithographs, ephemera, stereographs and photographs, presscuttings from British newspapers and periodicals, colour engravings of the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly; peep shows, paper toy theatres, mountain themed board games, programmes of Albert Smith's shows, manuscript notebooks, magic lantern slides. Also including images and comments of material relating to climbing Mount Everest such as posters, music scores and jigsaws, table games; North Pole and South Pole explorations; Klondike's ephemera with a poster of 'The Gold Rush' with Charlie Chaplin. The catalogue was edited by Aldo Audisio and Veronica Lisino as part of a Italian-French cooperation project for the Museo Nazionale della Montagna, Turin. It includes a chapter by British researcher Darren Bevin on Smith and Mont Blanc.