The Antiquary's books

The idea of studying folktales as a career may sound dubious, but in the early 1900s, the study of folklore in England by both professionals and amateurs was at its zenith. In 1908 Gomme, one of the founders of the Folklore Society, published Folklore as an Historical Science as a controlled approach to unearthing man’s cultural development. His system incorporates a synchronized and wide-ranging use of historical sources that includes anthropological data – verbal folklore, written documents, archaeology, ethnological data, and material artifacts – as well as information and methods from sociology and other social sciences.

A history of English dress, beginning with archeological evidence and ending in the 18th Century. The book is illustrated throughout with inline drawings, and 59 B&W plates, all direct from primary sources, without the usual artistic reenterpretation of the time, an unusual feature in a 1909 book on this topic. In general, Clinch concentrates chiefly on Medieval and English Renaissance dress, which he plainly prefers to that of the Baroque or Rococo eras, (indeed he is quite dismissive of 18th Century dress). However, he devotes several special occasion-specific chapters to armor and military dress, ecclesiastical dress, coronation dress, and formal dress of the Livery Companies, and includes an impressive amount of pre-1066 information on British dress, making this book still useful to researchers a century and more after its 1909 publication. Besides the illustrations, Clinch also includes many primary sources from literary evidence, including a large section devoted the clothing entries of the account books of a wealthy young man in mid 17th Century Kent. Besides that the writing style manages to avoid dullness, despite all its weight of research. ---Tara Maginnis, 2012