“Victorian and Edwardian Furniture”, by John Andrews

Andrews, John. Victorian And Edwardian Furniture: Price Guide And Reasons For Values. Antique Collectors Club, 2009. Print.

(Amazon has changed their links again, and won’t give me an image-only link.  So I’ve returned to copying the book cover images from them.)

Having recently bought a 1913 farmhouse, I’ve become aware of the “Edwardian” period of home decoration that followed the Victorian age.  I hadn’t even known it existed, so this book was one of the ways I’ve been learning about it.  Exactly as the title says, it’s a price guide for furniture; what I didn’t realize was that it’s an English author and publication, so it’s hard to know how much would have been the same on this side of the pond.  It has been quite interesting to cross-reference pieces from this book to ones in the 1913 Eaton’s catalog, though!

Edwardian furniture was a little less ornate than the Victorian age, with different, lighter types of wood being popular.  It’s a nice, easy style that I can see being comfortable, between the dark, busy, and cluttered Victorian age and the later Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles that followed.  I’ll need to get this book out of the library again, to scan some of the pictures.