Excerpt from A Manual of Pottery and Porcelain for American Collectors The very few years during which public interest has been growing in this country to an appreciation of fictile wares could scarcely suffice to bring forth an exhaustive and detailed literature. Our public are just awaking to a comprehension of the Old World's advance and superiority in arts which we have yet scarcely attempted; but they have in their graves the honored dust of ages: and experience, with them, is of a thousand years; our history may be one in which the arts shall not be measured by this toilsome time. In collating these pages the author has had recourse to those authorities of the Old World which are there regarded as standard, and as it may be of interest to the reader to make a further excursion in this domain, a few authors' names may assist his journey among the books. In the field of Ancient Pottery, Birch's history is complete, although this is not a part absolute of ceramic art; still it is essential if we choose to follow its interesting historical progress. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.