BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CHATTO &- WINDUS. 9 



A Dic- 



NEW AND IMPORTANT WORK. 



Oyclopaedia of Costume; or, 



tionary of Dress, Regal, Ecclesiastical, Civil, and Military, from 



the Earliest Period in England to the reign of George the Third. 



Including Notices of Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent, 



and preceded by a General History of the Costume of the. Principal 



Countries of Europe. By J. R. Planch^, F.S.A., Somerset Herald. 



This work ivill be published in Tiventy-fo^ir Monthly Parts, quarto, at Five 



Shillings J profusely illustrated by Plates and Wood Engravings ; laith each Part 



•will _also be issued a splendid Colotired Plate, from an original Painting or Illu- 



mination, 0/ Royal and Noble Personages, and National Costu-inc, both foreign and 



dotnesiic. The First Part is just ready. 



IN collecting materials for a History of Costume of 

 more importance than the little handbook which has 

 met with so much favour as an elementary work, I was 

 not only made aware of my own deficiencies, but sur- 

 prised to find how much more vague are the explana- 

 tions, and contradictory the statements, of our best 

 authorities, than they appeared to me, when, in the 

 plenitude of my ignorance, I rushed upon almost un- 

 ' trodden ground, and felt bewildered hy the mass of 

 unsifted evidence and unhesitating assertion which met 

 my eyes at every turn. 

 , During the forty years which have elapsed since the 

 I publication of the first edition of my " History of British 

 Costume" in the "Library of Entertaining Know- 

 ledge," archaeological investigation has received such 

 an impetus by the establishment of metropolitan and 

 provincial peripatetic antiquarian societies, that a flood 

 of light has been poured upon us, by which we are 

 enabled to re-examine our opinions and discover reasons 

 to doubt, if we cannot find facts to authenticate. 



That the former greatly preponderate is a grievous 

 acknowledgment to make after assiduously devoting 

 the leisure of half my life to the pursuit of information 

 on this, to me, most fascinating subject. It is some 

 consolation, however, to feel that where I cannot in- 

 struct, I shall certainly not mislead, and that the reader 

 will find, under each head, all that is known to, or 

 suggested by, the most competent writers I am ac- 



_ quainted with, either here or on the Continent. 



That this work appears in a glossarial form arises from, the desire of many artists, 

 who have expressed to me the difficulty they constantly meet with in their en- 

 deavours to ascert^n the complete form of a garment, or the exact mode of fastening 

 a piece of armour, or buckling of a belt, from their study of a sepulchral effigy or 

 a fieure in an illumination; the attitude of the personages represented, or the dispo- 

 sitiln of other portions of their attire, effectually preventing the requisite examination. 

 The books supplying any such information are very few and the best confined to 

 armour or ecclesiitical costume. Theonly English publication of the kind required, 

 that I am aware of, is the late Mr. Fairholt s Costume in England (8vo, London, 

 1846). the last two hundred pages of which contain a glossary, the most valuable 

 portion whereof are the quotations from oM plays, medieval romances and satirical 

 ballads, containing allusions to various articles of attire in fashion at the time of 

 their composition. Twenty-eight years have expired since that book appeared, and 

 it has been thought that a more comprehensive work on the subject than hgg yet 

 issued from the English press, combinmg the pith of the information of many costly 

 foreign publication!, and, in its illustrations, keeping m view the special require- 

 ment of the artist, to which I have alluded, would be, in these days of education J 

 OTO^ess and critical inquiry, a welcome addition to the library of an English 

 gentleman, J- R- PLANCHE. 



74 ^ 15, PICCADILLY, LONDON, W. 



