Links:

CoOL: "Conservation OnLine," a project of the Preservation Department of Stanford University

Also published:

• A Degree of Mastery : A Journey Through Book Arts Apprenticeship
• A.J. Bayless, "your home town grocer"

Above: The "cover" of Annie Tremmel Wilcox's book, Butter Knives and Fish Forks: With Guidance from The New Setting Your Table.

Annie Tremmel Wilcox's Butter Knives and Fish Forks is an interactive artists' book. After opening the outer box (pictured below), the reader is presented with a miniature table and chairs with place settings for four (pictured below). The text of Butter Knives and Fish Forks is held underneath the table by a clear plastic band. The text itself is an accordion fold booklet that contains Annie Tremmel Wilcox's recollections of setting the table at her mother's house. Along with the text is a series of six cards diagramming the correct way in which to set a table for breakfast, lunch and dinner (pictured above right).

Above: The outer box of Annie Tremmel Wilcox's Butter Knives and Fish Forks: With Guidance from The New Setting Your Table.

Above: One of the three sets of diagrams. This set shows a breakfast setting.

Above: The luncheon diagram.

Annie Tremmel Wilcox explains in Butter Knives and Fish Forks that while, as a child, she was impressed that her mother "remembered the uses of the various pieces of silver and where they went on the table," she later "discovered that there were entire books written in the 40s and 50s about how to set tables and serve food. Books like...The New Setting Your Table."

Throughout the text of Butter Knives and Fish Forks, Annie Tremmel Wilcox juxtaposes her story against large blocks of quotation for The New Setting Your Table. For example, one reads, "As to whether you shall set the table or leave it to a maid to do, well that depends....If you value your reputation as a hostess, you will at least check the setting carefully, no matter how busy you are."

Above: The third set of diagrams - dinner.

Above: The table, chairs, and place settings of Butter Knives and Fish Forks: With Guidance from The New Setting Your Table by Emily Martin. The booklet is attached to the underside of the table, and can be accessed by removing the tilted chair seen on the right hand side.