Museums and well-known collections, noblemen's seats and country houses have furnished photographs of the finest examples, and these, now well-known, pieces have appeared again and again as illustrations to volumes by various hands. It is obviously essential in the study of the history and evolution of furniture-making in this country that superlative specimens be selected as ideal types for the student of design or for the collector, but such pieces must always be beyond the means of the average collector. The present volume has been written for that large class of collectors, who, while appreciating the beauty and the subtlety of great masterpieces of English furniture, have not long enough purses to pay the prices such examples bring after fierce competition in the auction-room. The field of minor work affords peculiar pleasure and demands especial study. The character of the cottage and farmhouse furniture is as sturdy and independent as that of the persons for whom it was made. For three centuries unknown cabinet-makers in towns and in villages produced work unaffected by any foreign influences. Linen-chests, bacon-cupboards, Bible-boxes, gate tables, and other tables, dressers, and chairs possess particular styles of treatment in different districts. The eighteenth-century cabinet-makers scattered up and down the three kingdoms and in America found in Chippendale's "Director" a design-book which stimulated them to produce furniture of compelling interest to the collector. The examples of such work illustrated in this volume have been taken from a wide area and are such as may come under the hand of the diligent collector in various parts of the country. In view of the increased love of collecting homely furniture suitable for modern use, it is my hope that this book may find a ready welcome, especially nowadays, when so many of the picturesque architectural details of old homesteads are being reproduced in the garden suburbs of great cities. It is possible that the authorities of local museums may find in this class of furniture a field for special research, as undoubtedly specimens of local work should be secured for permanent exhibition before they are dispersed far and wide and their identity with particular districts lost for ever.