The Ball-room guide

de John Milton and Ruth Neils Ward Collection (Harvard Theatre Collection)

Like many other nineteenth-century dance manuals, much of the material in The ball-room guide is not original but borrowed from other sources. The manual opens with discussion on the arrangements for balls, appropriate dress for ladies and gentlemen, and thirteen pages of etiquette. Various dances are described including quadrilles, the waltz, varsoviana, polka and three group dances, "The Spanish Dance," "Tempête," and "Sir Roger de Coverly." The manual concludes with a glossary of terminology used in ballroom dance.