cowfoot
Established Member
Woods in British Furniture Making, 1400 - 1900
An Illustrated Historical Dictionary
Adam Bowett, pub. Oblong Creative Ltd 2012
This weighty tome has been sat on my wish list for quite some time. I must have been a good boy all year as Santa dropped it off for Christmas, and having had a few days to gather some impressions beyond "blimey, it's a whopper" I thought I'd attempt a review.
First off, you get what you pay for. It's printed in the UK using heavyweight paper and illustrated throughout - the photography is uniformly excellent. It's really encouraging that publishers are continuing to produce books with such high standards nowadays - I've owned a Kindle but using one for a book like this would be like listening to Bach on Youtube (does that make me sound like a snob? oh well, tally ho!).
The introductory essay by the author is fascinating; a sixteen page explanation of the social, political and economic circumstances that influenced the importation and usage of timber during the time period covered. There's been a glut of books covering one specific aspect of material culture (from "Cod - A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World" to "The Untold Story of the Potato"!), using them as a springboard to discuss larger issues. The author keeps it tightly focussed in this case, but I'd be happy to read much more on this topic. My Dad, a former forester, couldn't be prised away from reading the introduction...despite its somewhat scathing assesment of the Forestry Commission during the 20th century.
There follows a brief introduction to naming conventions and an explanation of timber structure that's as good (and useful to the woodworker) as any I've read. I was worried that this book would only be of interest to those in the antiques trade or similar - I'm sure it is, but it's equally so to us "makers".
The main body of the text is, as the title makes clear, a dictionary. The very first sentence gives a good indication of how exhaustively researched and detailed this work is -
"Aburra wood.
The only known use of this term occurs in connection with a commission executed by the London furniture makers Morel & Hughes for the 3rd Duke of Northumberland at his London house in 1832."
Now that's what I call digging in the archives!
From several pages on Mahogany (including photographic examples of period furniture and West African logging crews, tables of import figures from the Bahamas during the Victorian era and a graph showing comparative sources of American mahogany) to single line entries regarding colloquial names of uncertain provenance, this is a fantastic resource. The longer entries are perfect little essays on a theme - I'm only half-joking when I tell my wife that it's bedtime reading...
In summary, this isn't a cheap book - shop around, try a library, keep your fingers crossed for next Xmas - but it's worth every penny. The depth of research is staggering, the writing is explanatory without being dry and it's beautifully put together.
An Illustrated Historical Dictionary
Adam Bowett, pub. Oblong Creative Ltd 2012
This weighty tome has been sat on my wish list for quite some time. I must have been a good boy all year as Santa dropped it off for Christmas, and having had a few days to gather some impressions beyond "blimey, it's a whopper" I thought I'd attempt a review.
First off, you get what you pay for. It's printed in the UK using heavyweight paper and illustrated throughout - the photography is uniformly excellent. It's really encouraging that publishers are continuing to produce books with such high standards nowadays - I've owned a Kindle but using one for a book like this would be like listening to Bach on Youtube (does that make me sound like a snob? oh well, tally ho!).
The introductory essay by the author is fascinating; a sixteen page explanation of the social, political and economic circumstances that influenced the importation and usage of timber during the time period covered. There's been a glut of books covering one specific aspect of material culture (from "Cod - A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World" to "The Untold Story of the Potato"!), using them as a springboard to discuss larger issues. The author keeps it tightly focussed in this case, but I'd be happy to read much more on this topic. My Dad, a former forester, couldn't be prised away from reading the introduction...despite its somewhat scathing assesment of the Forestry Commission during the 20th century.
There follows a brief introduction to naming conventions and an explanation of timber structure that's as good (and useful to the woodworker) as any I've read. I was worried that this book would only be of interest to those in the antiques trade or similar - I'm sure it is, but it's equally so to us "makers".
The main body of the text is, as the title makes clear, a dictionary. The very first sentence gives a good indication of how exhaustively researched and detailed this work is -
"Aburra wood.
The only known use of this term occurs in connection with a commission executed by the London furniture makers Morel & Hughes for the 3rd Duke of Northumberland at his London house in 1832."
Now that's what I call digging in the archives!
From several pages on Mahogany (including photographic examples of period furniture and West African logging crews, tables of import figures from the Bahamas during the Victorian era and a graph showing comparative sources of American mahogany) to single line entries regarding colloquial names of uncertain provenance, this is a fantastic resource. The longer entries are perfect little essays on a theme - I'm only half-joking when I tell my wife that it's bedtime reading...
In summary, this isn't a cheap book - shop around, try a library, keep your fingers crossed for next Xmas - but it's worth every penny. The depth of research is staggering, the writing is explanatory without being dry and it's beautifully put together.
