Yes, I agree, it is always important to say what's your point of interest when judging books. I always tend to judge books with practical instructions like how to make something etc. better than vast theory-based books, even though both can be of the same value.
Still, I think that some can be marked as "generally bad" - many of the general costume history books are very superficial in all periods, usually more in the earlier than in the later ones. Thanks for the list - I see I have 3 books from your list...some of them are very unuseful, some can be helpful in very special cases, but over all I think they're a waste of money. Zuzana Robin Netherton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:My "bad" might be someone else's useful, particularly if that someone else is doing theatre costume. Also, my focus is on medieval dress, which may or may not be the same as your interest. Some of my favorite "bad" books cover many centuries and probably do a reasonably good job in the later ones, but not in medieval. (This is something that happens a lot with textbooks and survey books, particularly if the author is a specialist in, say, 18th or 19th century and writes the medieval section based on other books without knowing how to spot the errors.) On the other hand: I don't think anyone here would mind if you asked here about specific books you're thinking of buying, and then people who have the book can tell you whether it's useful for specific periods and purposes. FWIW, these are just some of the things on my own "bad" books shelf: - Bigelow, Fashion in History (my old college textbook -- just horrible) - Kohler, Dover reprint of 1928 edition (very good for some things, but unreliable in others) - Norris's Tudor volume, original 1938 and also the Dover reprint (I still need to get the medieval one) - Wilton, Book of Costume, 1986 Shep annotated reprint of 1846 edition - Ashdown, original 1910 edition (but now it's out in Dover reprint) - Gorsline, What People Wore, 1952 (not bad as a general overview for beginners, but it's all redrawings) - Lister, Costumes of Everyday Life, 1972 (OK for visual overview but repeats a lot of myths, and all redrawings) - Cremers-van der Does, Agony of Fashion, 1980 (agenda-heavy theory and bad information) - Sage, Study of Costume, 1926 (typical of its time, regurgitated errors) - Lester, Historic Costume, englarged fourth ed. 1956 (ditto), and 1961 edition of same, expanded for later periods by Kerr - Evans, Costume Throughout the Ages, 1930 (ditto) - Laver, Costume and Fashion, 1985 reprint of 1969 ed. (at least this one has some real artwork!) - Laver, Costume through the Ages, 1963, (all redrawings, no text to speak of) - Houston, Medieval Costume in England and France, 1996 Dover reprint of 1939 volume That's less than half of them. I have more like these, plus a number of non-English books, old coffee-table picture books, etc. Again, I only looked at the medieval/Renaiassance sections of these. Some of them might be very good for Victorian! But most of them are in general badly sourced and simply repeat assumptions from previous books. --Robin -- Robin Netherton Editor at Large [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (314) 439-1222 // fax: (314) 439-1666 Life is just a bowl of queries. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
