Old English Plate

London : John Murray, 1914. Cloth. Very Good. 9" by 6". None. Cripps's fascinating compendium for the plate collector. 'Ecclesiastical, Decorative, and Domesic: Its Makers and Marks'. Tenth Edition. With a tissue guarded frontispiece, several further plates and numerous illustrations in the text: '133 illustrations and upwards of 2700 facsimilies of plates marks'. Wilfred Joseph Cripps (1841–1903) was best known as a writer on silver. It is for his research and publications in the field of decorative arts, specifically silver studies, that Cripps deserves to be remembered. His interest in old silver began in the early 1870s, when he was introduced by William, fifth Earl Bathurst, to Charles Octavius Swinnerton Morgan, the antiquary, who entrusted Cripps with his notes on the subject. In 1878 Cripps published Old English Plate, his major scholarly work. This drew on the researches of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, Morgan himself, William Chaffers, and others, but brought them to a wider audience, and thereby greatly stimulated the demand for antique silver. Nine editions of the manual appeared between 1878 and 1906, with each new edition containing fresh material; there were subsequent reprints in 1927, 1967, and 1977. DNB In a cloth binding. Externally sound, slight wear to the head and tail of the spine and one or two marks to the boards. Internally, generally firmly bound, strained in places. Bright and clean. Very Good