Victorian Goods and Merchandise

Book excerpt: This immensely usable archive of vintage illustrations not only offers a wonderful window on the goods and merchandise of a bygone era, but is an absolute treasure trove of easily reproducible graphic art as well. Some 2,300 cuts culled from such rare nineteenth-century periodicals as The Art Journal, The Illustrated London News, The Scientific American, and The Youth's Companion have been organized in convenient categories: clothes, furniture, kitchenware, toys and games, musical instruments, stationery supplies, domestic accessories, and much more. Among them are detailed and highly reproducible illustrations of fans, corsets, toiletry kits, jewelry, roller skates, a baby carriage, bicycles, baseball gloves, a pencil sharpener, crayons, fountain pen, typewriter, drafting tools, compass, microscope, feather duster, parasol, small table with smoking paraphernalia, high-topped "storm slippers," and hundreds of other objects.