PREFACE.
THE Fourth Edition of Ardern Holt's "Fancy Dresses Described" being exhausted, we have made arrangements for the publication of the Fifth Edition with such corrections as experience dictates, and a very large addition to the number of characters detailed.
The suggestions we have received have been carefully noted, and the result is a larger and more comprehensive work than any hitherto published.
The inquiry for Coloured Plates has induced us to select sixteen favourite Models for Illustration in Colours, of a completely new character, as well as a new series of smaller Illustrations, and we trust they will add greatly to the usefulness of the book.
The Author's name is a guarantee for the correctness of the descriptions and accuracy of details; and we have endeavoured (as in former editions) to maintain such simplicity as will enable many ladies to produce the costumes at home.
Wigmore Street and Welbeck Street,
December, 1887.
