Viennese silver, antique tiles & celebrity chefs-

Work on our new February Recent Acquisitions Catalog is almost done, and it should be ready next week. In the meantime we just got three great new publisher-overstock titles in about Viennese silver, the first celebrity chef, and antique tiles-

Huey, Michael (ed.). Viennese
Silver. Modern Design 1780-1918. Hatje Cantz Verlag: 2003. Illustrated with more than 500 images, including 189 color plates, this volume presents more than 180 outstanding silver objects from Vienna, of the period from Neoclassicism to the Wiener Werkstatte. The book compares late 18th-century works with examples of early 20th-century design and architecture, offering both a detailed look at Vienna's unquestioned influence on the development of the modern decorative arts and also evidence that the roots of modernism's spare, clean lines go back further than is often assumed. Images from popular culture-airplanes, rocket ships, sleek urban structures-are compared to the tureens, tableware, and decorative items they inspired. Published in conjunction with the loan exhibition at the Neue Gallery in New York and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Hardcover. 9.5”x11.5”, 398 pages, b/w and color illustrations, dj. New. [95070]

Published at $125.00.
Available for a limited time for $60.00

Kelly, Ian. Cooking for Kings. The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef. New York; Walker & Co.: 2003. “A unique feast of biography and Regency cookbook, ‘Cooking for Kings’ takes readers on a culinary tour of the palaces of Britain and Europe in the ultimate age of gastronomic indulgence, when, for the first time, chefs became celebrities and the modern restaurant was born”. Antonin Careme invented the chef’s hat and soufflé, and cooked for Romanovs, Rothschilds, Emperors and Kings. Hardcover. 5.5”x8.5”, 301 pages, several color and line illustrations, dj. New. [95069]

Published at $26.00.
Available for a limited time for $10.00

Lang, Gordon (ed.). 1000 Tiles. Ten Centuries of Decorative Ceramics. San Francisco; Chronicle Books: 2004. A colorful extravaganza of antique tiles, from antique Islamic and Dutch tiles and Italian maiolica to Medieval pavements and colorful Victorian, Arts & Crafts and Art Deco examples. The authors include Paul Atterbury, Catherine Blake and Riccardo Sorani. If you love tiles you’ll love this thick, weighty book. Softcover. 8”x9”, 320 pages, packed with color illustrations. New. [95068]

Published at $29.95.
Available for a limited time for $15.00

New Furniture Catalog-

There’s no snow so far at Foggygates, which you would think would put a slight crimp in plans for Winter sledding parties, but then you’d have thunk half a step behind the Book Elves. With a pair of ‘Blizzard-3000 Super Toboggans’, a keg of beer and a dozen pizzas on hand, they weren’t about to let a little thing like bare ground stop them this past Saturday night. So with a little help from a few cans of ‘Krazy Al’s XX-Xrta Slik Silicone Spray’ and a pair of Honeywell TFE73131 Turbojet engines they “borrowed” from a Learjet that just happened to be “sitting around” at the local airport, they piled on and were set to go-

-and boy did they. For the official record, they were last spotted by radar at 2,500 feet, heading northwest over Montpelier, Vermont. But before they reached warp speed at cruising altitude and scared the dickens out of those Canada geese, they finished our new printed catalog-

"BOOKS ON FURNITURE, CABINETMAKERS & RELATED SUBJECTS" is now available on our website or in printed format. It features 264 books and catalogs on furniture, cabinetmakers and, well... related subjects.

Request a printed copy, or browse the catalog on our website.

A Gothic Revival Survival-

Oxford's Natural History Museum remains as one of the most dramatic and handsome Gothic Revival museums in England, even after they cut all those stupid holes in the roof...

In our new January catalog we have an very interesting book on the Museum, written by John Ruskin and Henry W. Acland. "The Oxford Museum" was published by Smith, Elder and Co. in 1859. It is an interesting discourse touching on the principles of the Gothic Revival, handwork and the dignity of workmen, and the proper decoration of buildings, as they were related to the architecture of Oxford’s famous Museum of Natural History, popularly known as the Oxford Museum. Championed in the 1850s by Sir Henry Acland, who felt that Oxford was ignoring the natural sciences, the Museum brought all those disciplines, including geology, astronomy, geometry, chemistry, and zoology under one roof.

And quite a neo-Gothic roof it was... The building was designed by Deane and Woodward of Dublin, with assistance of one sort or another from Ruskin, who notes here-

“In the competition [for the design] scarce any limitation was imposed, and to style none. Thirty-two designs by anonymous contributors were sent in; the majority of the judges, after a thoroughly English battle, in which some professed advocates of Gothic architecture deprecated the application of Gothic Art to secular purposes, -thereby denying to their own style that malleability which is, perhaps, its highest prerogative, -the design, ‘Nisi Dominus oedificaverit domum,’ was accepted”.

The Museum was the scene of the famous 1860 debate during which Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, asked Thomas Huxley whether he was descended from a monkey on his grandfather’s or grandmother’s side, to which Huxley replied that he had "no need to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather, but that he would be ashamed of having for an ancestor a man of restless and versatile interest who distracts the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digression and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."

This book is a hardcover, 4.75”x7.5”, 111 pages plus a 4-page list of other titles by the authors; steel-engraved frontispiece of a pillar with fern carvings; a full-page woodblock plate of decorative tracery; folding plan of the museum; publisher’s pebbled & embossed cloth with gilt titles; spine slightly faded, else a very nice, fresh copy.

As an added point of interest, it has the handsome engraved bookplate of Herbert John Gladstone [1854-1930]. Lord Gladstone was the son of Prime Minister William Gladstone, and after lecturing on history at Keble College, Oxford, he embarked on a long political career which culminated in his appointment as Home Secretary under Asquith from whence, after some controversy over domestic policy, he was booted “upstairs” and sent to South Africa as the first Governor-General and High Commissioner of the Union of South Africa. [30336] $350.00

See our entire January catalog here.

New January Catalog-

Well, for one brief, shining moment Spring came early to Foggygates. Yes, according to the calendar it was only January, but it was 71 degrees on Saturday and the Book Elves went into full Springtime Overdrive Frenzy, hauling out the rakes and yard tools, as well as the lawn chairs and barbecue equipment. The end result was that three of them got completely stuck in the mud in the garden and had to be rescued by the neighbor’s lawn tractor, and the barbecue was brought to an unfortunate and abrupt end by that unforeseen temperature drop and brief snow squall at dusk (around 4:30).

But before they discovered that the temperature might lie, but the calendar never does, the Book Elves finished our new catalog of books on the decorative and fine arts and architecture-

“RECENT ACQUISITIONS, BOOKS ON ANTIQUES & THE ARTS for JANUARY, 2007”, featuring 224 books and catalogs, is now available in printed format, or viewable on our website.


If you would like a printed copy, please send us your mailing address.

A Unique Cookbook-

We don't carry many cookbooks, but when this one was brought to my attention, I knew we had to add it to our stock-

"Food to Die For. A Book of Funeral Food, Tips and Tales" by Jessica Bemis Ward. Published by the Old City Cemetery and the Southern Memorial Association in 2004. A cookbook and photographic tour of Lynchburg’s historic Old City Cemetery, all in one book!

“The act of taking food to the bereaved when someone has died is a way of giving expression to sentiments that cannot always be put into words. Practically and psychologically, the edible offering provides sustenance and comfort. It is the main object of this book to gather the recipes that people present as Funeral food. This unique cookbook includes more than 100 great recipes for Central Virginia's favorite comfort foods, including Jane's Corn Pudding, Cheese Straws, Mur's Peas, Bookstore Punch, and Sweet Briar Cookies as well as lighthearted looks at funeral customs, old and new, practical advice for writing obituaries and condolence notes, and useful terminology like ‘funeral tsar’ and ‘dying order’. The cookbook contains 180 pages of recipes, etiquette, and anecdotes”.

Established in 1806, the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia is the state’s oldest continuously-operated public cemetery. This book contains not only funeral lore and recipes, but many photographs of the beautiful and historic grounds and buildings. A unique cookbook.

Spiralbound. 7.5”x9”, 180 pages, b/w illustrations. New. [90223] $25.00