TITLE: THE BOOK OF THE HOME A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT BY H.C. DAVIDSON DESCRIPTION: ART NOVEAU COVERS IN 8 VOLUMES FOXING PRESENT AND PROTECTIVE PAPER OF VOL 1 FRONTISPIECE BEEN REMOVED. IN VOLUME 8 THE FRONTISPIECE PAGE HAS SEPARATED BUT PRESENT AS IN LAST PHOTO , MARKS TO SOME OF THE REARS OF THE VOLUMES. By the turn of the twentieth century something of an avalanche of multi volume sets of an encyclopaedic type were being published to meet the needs of aspirational families. 'The Book of the Home' aimed to be as comprehensive as possible and was clearly intended for a newly married couple setting up home together. The contents follow a logical themed progression with Volume 1 containing chapters on: The choice of a house, the law of landlord and tenant, decoration of the house, furnishing the house - Volume 2 follows with: Furnishing the house (continued), heating and lighting, draperies and home upholstery, final decoration, the garden - Volume 3: The engagement of servants, the law of master and servant, the treatment of servants, cook's department, the larder, cookery - Volume 4: Cookery (continued), the store cupboard, servants and their duties, spring-cleaning, household economy, laundry work, the dairy, the poultry-yard - Volume 5: The law of husband and wife, the master's duties, the mistress's duties, the toilet, choice and care of dress, home dressmaking, embroidery - Volume 6: Embroidery (continued), home art work, reading and correspondence, household repairs, entertaining, locomotion, domestic pets, home occupations for profit - Volume 7: The first baby, management of children, children's dress, children's amusements, health, sickness, invalid cookery, education - Volume 8 Education (continued), home gymnastics, music, recreation, choice of a career, holidays, Christmas and other festivals, coming out of a daughter, a wedding. The contents of the last sections of volume 8 are evidently working towards circular life-cycle of the pre-atomic family, the publishers showing that the work could be trusted almost as an heirloom of common-sense and practical information for the next generation. The Gresham Publishing Co. was part if the Glasgow publishing firm of Blackie and Sons Ltd, they had by 1900 developed along two main lines: bookselling and publishing in the subscriptions business. ^gThe Book of the Home ^g is a classic example of the subscription type of work they carried out and was cheifly the brainchild of John Alexander Blackie (1850-1918), the third generation in the business. His wide technical knowledge Blackie revolutionized production methods, inventing a unique system of mass production so ingenious that constructional uniformities were disguised at the time by rich variations in book design, and were fully comprehended only seventy-five years after his death His uncle Robert Blackie, in charge of the art department in his father's day, continued to manage it until the appointment in 1893 of the designer Talwin Morris. Almost at once Blackies became patrons of an art nouveau movement more famous in Europe than in Britain, ultimately known as the Glasgow style, and associated with Charles Rennie Mackintosh. [ODNB] The binding of is typical of Talwin Morris work for the company, with an upper cover of two stylised peacocks and a back cover based on ostrich feathers, an appropriate symbolism of wealth, abundance, and fertility. The editor was Hugh Colman Davidson (1852-1934) a contemporary of Blackie, although how much he himself contributed is difficult to judge and may have been employed to draw the threads together for the publishers touted that over a hundred individuals were involved in bringing the text together. Illustrations are more conventional than the covers would indicate although the coloured plates and some of the halftone illustrations show contemporary work by Waring and Liberty but generally the work was envisaged as modern but not anything avant-garde.
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