The secretary, a bookcase and slant-top desk combination, evolved in Britain and America in the 18th Century and has been popular ever since. By setting a bookcase atop a slant-top desk, the secretary embodies the close relationship between books and writing. Until the 19th Century, books were an expensive and sometimes rare commodity to be treasured.
A secretary offered an ideal way to keep a precious collection safely behind glass, only an arm’s reach away. The Queen Anne version featured in this chapter is more elegant than the stolid furniture that hallmarked the 17th Century, but it is less ornate than some of the incarnations that followed it, such as Chippendale-style secretaries.
The desk half of the piece has several useful features. The veneered fall-front can be lowered to become a large writing surface and reveal the “pigeonhole” unit. This network of dividers, compartments, and drawers served as a primitive precursor to today’s laptop computers. Completely portable, the unit enabled clerks in bygone days to take their offices and information with them when traveling. You can adapt the pigeonhole design shown on page 108, adding or removing compartments, adjusting their spacing, or incorporating more drawers to fit your needs.
Another useful component of the desk is the lockable lid. This safeguards the contents of the pigeonholes, while providing a quick way to hide clutter behind the fall-front.
Both the desk and bookcase derive much of their strength from half-blind dovetails. Cutting these joints by hand (page 109) is timeconsuming, but well worth the effort, considering the hand-crafted appearance you will obtain. The drawers can be made with through dovetails cut with a commercial jig and a router (page 116), and the end grain of the tails hidden with false fronts. You can also use half-blind dovetails to attach the drawer fronts, thereby dispensing with false fronts.
The veneer applied to the fall-front (page 121) adds a decorative flair to the desk, becoming the focus of the entire piece. The secretary shown opposite uses bookmatched veneer, but other attractive options are shown on page 124. If you plan to do a lot of veneering, consider buying a vacuum press (page 124); otherwise, use a shop-made veneer press (page 125).
The design and construction of the base (page 128) and crown molding (page 134) may appear complicated, but the time-tested methods presented are not difficult to master and are important to accommodate the inevitable wood movement at these vulnerable locations.
Made from mahogany with a clear lacquer finish, the Queen Anne secretary shown at left marries elegance with usefulness, crowning a slant-top desk with a bookcase to create a single, striking piece of furniture.