Sundials and Roses of Yesterday
Garden Delights Which Are Here Displayed in Every Truth and Are Moreover Regarded as Emblems

This highly illustrated 1902 work illuminates the social history of two 'garden delights': sundials and roses.

Alice Morse Earle (Author)

9781108065184, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 September 2013

588 pages, 237 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 3.3 cm, 0.74 kg

The American social historian and antiquarian Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) published this lavishly illustrated book, among the last of her works, in 1902. By this time she had developed a distinctive style of historical writing which made innovative use of material evidence in its focus on the details of everyday life. She was particularly interested in family and society in colonial America, and her views about the importance of ancestry were reflected in her membership of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her fascination for beautiful things found lively expression in this learned and charming exploration of two 'garden delights'. Drawing readily on folklore, literature and anecdote, Earle brings to life her history of sundials and roses in Europe and America, touching on practical, aesthetic and symbolic aspects.

1. The charm and sentiment of sun-dials
2. Noon-marks, spot-dials, window-dials
3. Classification of sun-dials
4. The construction of sun-dials
5. Ingeniose diallers
6. Portable dials
7. The sun-dial as an emblem
8. Symbolic designs for sun-dials
9. Pedestals and gnomon
10. The setting of sun-dials
11. Sun-dial mottoes
12. The sun-dial as a memorial
13. Pliny saieth
14. Rosa solis, rose plate, and rosee
15. The emblem of the rose in English history
16. Our grandmothers' roses
17. The Rosicrucians
18. The sun-dial of Ahaz
19. Rural saints and prophets
20. A story of four dials
Index.

Subject Areas: Popular science [PDZ]