Victorian Treasures: An Album and Historical Guide for Collectors - Hardcover

Wallace, Carol McD

9780810939295: Victorian Treasures: An Album and Historical Guide for Collectors

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810939290 ISBN 13: 9780810939295

Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc, 1993

A celebration of English and American Victoriana organizes the objects discussed into six chapters, each devoted to a different room in a typical Victorian home--parlor, library, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and nursery--and features two hundred illustrations.

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From Booklist:

Step into Wallace's parlor to learn about Victoriana in a very readable yet well-researched manner. Though her reasoning for contemporary interest in this particular period might be a bit off-base ("We want plush. We want ruffles. We want fringe, rosebuds, and ornately carved edges."), her facts and photographs are intriguing, perhaps even compelling enough to prompt a nascent collector into stockpiling. Divided by room, each of the seven sections first discusses general use and habits (the front hall, for example, as the repository for canes and calling cards), then focuses on objects belonging to that space. Where else could readers discover the proper use of the chatelaine, the waistband-hooked series of housekeeping tools? Or that postage stamps were pioneered by Great Britain in 1840? A technique to teach history painlessly or to absorb a piece of the past. Barbara Jacobs

From Library Journal:

As a guide for collectors, this book is unusual in its emphasis on the social and domestic milieu in which the antiques were used. It is arranged as a room-by-room tour through a fictional, urban, middle- or upper-middle-class household of the Victorian era, with pictures and discussions of a representative selection of objects. These museum-quality antiques are both beautifully photographed and well documented, with a list of sources included at the end of the book. The text suffers somewhat from historical generalization, and the reader must bear in mind that Victorian in this case refers to only one social class of that era. However, this book will find a ready audience among fans of Victoriana. Recommended for public libraries.
- Constance Ashmore Fairchild, Univ. of Illinois Lib., Urbana-Champaign
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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