This actually proved to be more than I expected: I had supposed that the costumes would be almost entirely English-style, but to my delight, Tierney has also given us Spanish/Portuguese, French, Swiss, Dutch, Norwegian and German costumes spanning the 17th and 18th century. The costumes are focused on fashionable inhabitants of the settlements in the future USA and Canada.

There are two female paper dolls with costume; their male counterparts are represented by paper dolls in 9 different costumes, usually with separate hats, approximately one for every three female costumes. There are two costumes/paperdolls per plate.

The French and English are most heavily represented There are three different sets of French costumes for three different periods. The English style costumes are broken into social categories, e.g., tradesman, Quaker, etc., spread over different periods. The Spanish/Portuguese costumes are all from around 1600; it would have been nice to have some later costumes also. The others are generally represented by one female costume and sometimes a male figure: Plate 10 shows costumes for German and Norwegian women and Plate 11 has a Swiss couple. The reader may want to check Tierney's American Family of the Pilgrim Period, which concentrates on English and Dutch costumes of New England and New York (some of them quite humble), or his coloring book Colonial & Early American Fashions.

As usual, Tierney has included very detailed descriptions of the costumes. One slight fault - the nationality is not always specified both on the plate and in the description, so one has to flip back and forth. No nationality is given at all for Plate 15; I assume from their position that the costumes are French.

A very interesting and informative little book. I sometimes wonder - how many people who buy these actually cut out the dolls, and how many, like me, just want a very nice little costume reference?

Tierney has other paper doll and coloring book collections of fashions for these eras, including Colonial and Early American Fashions (History of Fashion), American Family of the Colonial Era Paper Dolls in Full Color, American Family of the Pilgrim Period Paper Dolls in Full Color, and Little Pilgrim Girl Paper Doll (Dover Little Activity Books). ( )