Book Review: Forgotten Household Crafts

Hello darlings!

I just finished reading 'Forgotten Household Crafts' by John Seymour and I thought I'd share my thoughts. There's an old saying that goes ‘everyone has a book inside them' which Christopher Hitchens expanded to say 'which is exactly where it should, I think, in most cases, remain’. Unfortunately, in this case, the aphorism rings true.

The book is called 'Forgotten Household Crafts', but it mostly revolves around old ways of life; making your own food, looking after your home and rearing animals. The last two sections of the book, textile crafts and decorative crafts, are the only two sections concerning (what I would call) actual crafts. It was successful in building a picture of what life was like in the past, but as I was reading this for historical research it wasn't particularly helpful as there often wasn't a time frame as to when these routines were being practiced. It could have been the 1600s, it could have been the 1800s- so I've ended up with a lot of notes I don't know how to categorise.

However, there were mountains of illustrations that I loved and were very useful. There was also the occasional photo which didn't have a title, date or area it was photographed in. These felt shoehorned in and weren't always necessary.

The book was filled with personal anecdotes and tangents that had only a slight connection to the topic at hand. As this wasn't a particularly dense book, these asides were irritating as it felt it took away from the content that could have been included instead.

I was most looking forward to the last two segments of the book 'textile crafts' and 'decorative crafts'. Unfortunately, he only seemed to have a passing knowledge of these crafts (macrame only had a few sentences dedicated to it) and not their actual history so there was nothing that I didn't already know.

Overall it was a pleasant book to read, but I wouldn't recommend it if you would like true historical research or are already familiar with history or crafts. If you would like to imagine what it was like living in the past with no electricity or pre-packaged goods then pick up a copy!

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Until next time,

Aisha x