This is a reprint of a book first published in 1920 and which had been out of print for half a century. According to the magazine Antiques, it "has never been equaled or replaced as a standard reference on its subject". The authors considered "samplers to be the primary basis and training school of American needlework in the early days of the Nation". Contained within its nearly 500 pages are 76 sampler illustrations (on unnumbered pages), over 2500 descriptions of 17th, 18th and early 19th century samplers, an anthology of sampler verse from 1610 to 1830, a list of early schools and schoolmistresses, a section on embroidered heraldry with register of embroidered arms and an index, making this a valuable chronological history of the American sampler. An excellelnt copy with a former owner's bookplate and an erasure on the ffep. The unclipped dust jacket has a few short edge tears and a small edge chip on the back cover.