Instrument maker, scholar, researcher, author, and lecturer, musicologist Edward L. Kottick built his first harpsichord in 1963. He has investigated the instrument's acoustical properties as well as its historical aspects, and has published articles on the harpsichord in both scientific and scholarly journals.

• List of Plates and IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries1. From Psaltery and Monochord to Harpsichord and VirginalThe Sixteenth Century2. The Emergence of the Northern Harpsichord3. Antwerp Harpsichord Building between Karest and Ruckers4. Early Italian StyleThe Seventeenth Century5. The Ruckers-Couchet Dynasty6. Later Italian Style7. Seventeenth-Century International Style8. France9. Germany and Austria10. EnglandThe Eighteenth Century 11. The Decline of the Italian Harpsichord12. The Iberian Peninsula13. Harpsichord building in France to the Revolution14. The Low Countries in the Post-Ruckers Era15. Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, and Switzerland16. Great Britain and AmericaThe Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries17. The Harpsichord Hibernates18. The Harpsichord Revival from the Paris Exposition to World War II 19. The Modern Harpsichord20. Into the futureGlossaryBibliography Appendix: Exploded viewsIndex