Canadian Country Furniture, 1675-1950

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

This significant reference work on Canadian country furniture covers
nearly 300 years of popular and regional styles in the Atlantic
Provinces, Quebec, Ontario, and the Western Provinces. More than 700
photographs, most in black and white, illustrate the richness of this
cultural heritage, which includes the work of Hutterite, Mennonite, and
Doukhobor communities.

Michael Bird is a respected authority on Canadian folk and decorative
arts, and a frequent guest lecturer in North America, England, and
Germany. He treats handmade furniture as both functional objects and
works of art. In his introduction, “On Furniture as an Object of
Study,” Bird links utility and beauty, rejecting the common
patronizing division. If architecture is a high art, he argues
persuasively, so is the “interior architecture” of furniture.

This well-written and well-researched work includes a glossary.