A Stitch In Rhyme by Marsha Van Valin

A Stitch In Rhyme: An Examination of Verse Embroidered on Needlework Samplers in England and America between 1647 and 1857 by Marsha Van Valin

In this very enlightening and interesting book, Marsha Van Valin has provided us with a glimpse of the many and diverse sampler verses. The verses collected for this book are fairly representative of verse found on samplers everywhere during this period, but they have been limited almost exclusively to selections from samplers either now, or formerly, in the collection of The Scarlet Letter; or previously unpublished verse from other less-well-known collections, so the body of work collected has not previously been examined. An attempt has been made to avoid obvious direct Biblical quotations. Only those verses that paraphrase Biblical text with some ingenuity were recorded. Furthermore, the most common sampler verses have been left out and only those with the most merit - literary, psychological, sociological and historical - have been chosen. A wonderful collection!

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