Title: An introduction to English antiquities
First published: 1847
Description: "This book is designed to supply a want long felt by the public as well as in the schools and universities of England.^

Works are certainly to be met with, devoted to the elucidation of particular branches of British archæology, and full of interesting matter and laborious research; but these are in general costly, bulky, and inconvenient; and hitherto there has been no treatise which exhibited, in a form adapted for general use, the results of the labours of modern antiquaries upon the various subjects embraced by the comprehensive term of 'English antiquities.' Under these circumstances it seemed likely that at a period like the present, when a great and growing taste for the relics of the past has sprung up among all classes, a work illustrating the antiquities of England from the earliest times, and comprising a general account of its political institutions, religion, learning and arts, naval and military affairs, commerce and agriculture, manners and customs, would form a useful acquisition to all who wish to obtain information on this important, but hitherto much-neglected, branch of study.^

In its compilation, the main object has been to present a convenient manual and ready guide for the young student, or for those who, having but recently commenced the pursuit, might feel embarrassed by the riches around them, and be desirous of some compendious digest upon which they could consolidate and arrange the stores of information gleaned from various quarters. But the author, though he does not profess to instruct the antiquary, ventures to hope that even he will derive some advantage from the systematic form into which the enormous mass of existing materials have here been reduced. ...^

The introduction of illustrations in such a work is by no means new, but it is hoped that the number and arrangement of the engravings here presented, with the care that has been taken to procure them from the most authentic sources, will tend to give a clearer and more picturesque idea of the several subjects to which they are annexed, and with which the original design is invariably contemporary."--"Preface," p. vii-ix.
Subjects: Social life and customs, Civilization, Antiquities, History, English, Material culture
Places: England
LC classification: DA32 .E17