a lot of items that would have been familiar to householders of the last few centuries are illustrated in this book and placed in the context of the domestic life of the period, describing how they developed and how they were used. Such obsolete household utensils now attrat the interest of collectors, but it is still possible to acquire some of them relatively inexpensively; besides providing the owner with a piece of social history, many of them are quite decorative. The bygones describes in this book range from fire irons an the equipment used for cooking on the open fire to the moustache cup and the goffering stick.