I have his Tudor volume rather than the Medieval one, but the text in the Tudor volume is entirely suspect. Just as in his drawings, in his text there are some good bits of information and some that are almost entirely invented. Since he doesn't cite anything, the only way you'll know the difference is to check up on him with other sources.
My favorite example from the Tudor book is a lovely drawing of Queen Elizabeth riding a horse in a black gown. When I first saw it, I thought, "Neat! I don't recognize that portrait--I wonder where it is..." since he often redraws from 16th-century images. Looking in the text, however, I found that he had invented the picture based on a short description from a 16th-century text. He included the description in full. Looking at the date on the description and the picture, I found that he hadn't really paid attention to what was fashionable in that year when he was drawing. Much later, I found the actual description in the original source and realized that not only had he invented the picture on rather scanty evidence (and done a fairly poor job of it), he had embellished the description in his text as well, adding in details not found in the original! I have also found the originals of some of his redrawings, and he is very prone to "correcting" the images so they'll be in line with his own sense of current fashion, including adding a cute little bow on top of a french hood in one redrawing of a memorial brass. I don't trust him an inch. Melanie Schuessler On May 12, 2008, at 9:28 PM, Genie Barrett wrote: > Having just received Norris in a gift basket this last weekend, I am > wondering how good his TEXT is. I've heard so many of you mention > this as one of the least desirable of costuming books, but no one > says why. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
