Country Craftsmen. By Freda Derrick. (Chapman and Hall. 10s. 6d•
SINCE most of us feel some kind of nostalgia for the past, real or imagined, Miss Derrick's book on ancient country crafts should please many readers. She provides chapters on the builder, the smith, the thatcher and so on, giving a few historic details and recording conversations she has had and craftsmen's work she has seen in the rural southern half of England. Her own drawings— careful though perhapi over-fussy—accompany the text. A. book of this type is bound to be somewhat desultory, and Miss Derrick tends to miss the obvious point that machine-made goods may be of excellent design and hand-made goods of bad design. No one would deny, however, that the life of the craftsman is more interest- ing in many ways than that of the factory hand, and Miss Derrick has pictured sturdy, independent types. This is a pleasant book, to be read in snatches, encouraging one to keep one's eyes open and giving a sense of the legacy of the past. One of. the most interesting parts is the description of furniture at Kelmscott Manor, William Morris's old home.
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