"Dann Rail is a Victorian visionary whose sense of the need for things before others even realize that they need them has brought him great riches. While building a railway that leads nowhere, he is already working on his next dream: creating glass sheets larger than anyone has ever attempted or even needed. When the architect Hector Horeau arrives in town with a project for the Great Exposition, they are drawn to one another and aim to build a glass palace unlike anything ever seen before"--P. [4] of cover.