Clockwork Music: An illustrated history of mechanical musical instruments from the musical box to the pianola, from automaton lady virginal players to orchestrion

This book could be described as a scrapbook - a collection of interesting, amusing, trifling and dated ephemera. It could also be described as the first illuminated history of the musical box, indeed, of mechanical music as a whole. Whatever you, the reader, choose to call it depends on just how much you want to gain from it. For some, a collection of old advertisements of long-defunct companies from aged publications is valueless; for others it is a priceless asset and an aid and inspiration to further study. For the author, his archives, amassed over the twenty or so years in which he worked with and collected mechanical musical instruments, have proved a source of almost endless information and interest. The content here has been subdivided into sections, each provided with an introductory text. Every item also bears a suitable descriptive caption. [From the Author's Preface]