The number of books in print on how to make furniture is almost endless; the determined do-it-yourself antique-maker will want to start with Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises (London, 1683); Thomas Chippendale, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (London, 1754); and Thomas Sheraton, The Cabinet Dictionary (London, 1803). Among more recent publications, space permits mention of three—not necessarily the best or most complete, but at least representative: F. E. Hoard and A. W. Marlow, The Cabinetmaker’s Treasury (New York, Macmillan, 1952); Lester Margon, Construction of American Furniture Treasures (New York, Home Craftsman, 1949); and Raymond F. Yates, Antique Reproductions for the Home Craftsman (New York, Whittlesey House, 1950). The last named includes a discussion of old-time hand tools and techniques; although not strictly concerned with cabinetmaking tools, Henry D. Mercer, Ancient Carpenters’ Tools (Doylestown, Pa., Doylestown Hist. Soc., 1929) is very informative.

On the historical aspects of furniture and fashion there are, again, a multitude of books; a good start can be made with Frank Davis, A Picture History of Furniture (New York, Macmillan, 1958) and Hermann Schmitz, editor, The Encyclopedia of Furniture (New York, Praeger, 1957, new edition). On English seventeenth- and eighteenth-century styles Ralph Edwards and L. G. G. Ramsey, editors, Connoisseur Period Guides (London, The Connoisseur, 1956 et seq.) and Robert W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England (London, The Connoisseur, 1955) are indispensable. Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York, Macmillan, 1952) and Albert Sack, Fine Points of Furniture (New York, Crown, 1950) are essential for the colonial story in furniture design.

Local developments—Virginia and elsewhere—will be found in the article by Helen Comstock, “Furniture of Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky,” in Antiques Magazine, LXI (January, 1952). That magazine’s recent compilation entitled The Antiques Treasury (New York, Dutton, 1959) has useful information and many illustrations of furniture and other furnishings in Williamsburg and in a number of other American museums and restorations.

As to the craftsmen themselves and their life in colonial times, the first place to look is Ethel Hall Bjerkoe, The Cabinetmakers of America (Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, 1957); and for light on the general, social, and economic status of craft workers Carl Bridenbaugh, The Colonial Craftsman (New York, N. Y. Univ. Press, 1950) will be found helpful. Seat of Empire, by the same author; Hunter D. Farish, editor, The Journal ... of Philip Vickers Fithian; and Edmund S. Morgan, Virginians at Home (all published by Colonial Williamsburg, in 1950, 1958, and 1952 respectively) will provide lively background for the local phases of the picture.