Complete and unabridged, with 20 full-page plates by J. M. W. Turner, Wilhelm Melby and Vojtech Angyal. Heraldry explained to children: what a shield is divided into, why the colours have those names, how a coat is described in words and what the beasts on it once meant. Phoebe Allen wrote for readers who saw arms on churches and gateposts and had no idea how to read them. The blazon exercises are the useful part and they still work. Twenty plates of heraldic and ceremonial painting, among them J. M. W. Turner and Ford Madox Brown, show the arms and pageantry that the text teaches readers to read.