Preface

Dyes and Dyeing - Japanning

The Publishers have long been sensible of the comparative unwieldiness of the five bulky volumes to which the original Workshop Receipts has grown during the past few years and therefore the whole work has been put into the hands of competent Editors who, by the aid of experts, have thoroughly revised the vast mass of receipts and trade secrets embodied therein, and have reduced them to a greater regularity and a more accessible alphabetical arrangement. 

In the carrying out of this heavy task (for the survey of so wide a field is no simple undertaking), they have been careful to eliminate all information which was obsolete, to submit the remaining matter to experts for careful revision, and to amplify those sections dealing with Handicrafts.

Due acknowledgment of the sources of information has been made in the text, but the Publishers desire especially to express their indebtedness to the Council of the Royal Society of Arts for permission to make extracts from their invaluable Journal.

The Publishers present to the public the first volume of the revised work with full confidence that those who have used it in the past will find that it maintains the standard of sound, common-sense practicability, by which ' Workshop Receipts' has been distinguished for so many years.

07/2009