John Frederick Peto's picture uses a language of ambiguity, amplified by the conventions of trompe l'oeil, or "fool the eye," painting, a specialized form of still life popular in America at the end of the nineteenth century. Works in this style are designed to be elaborate visual deceptions that viewers will mistake for actual three-dimensional tableaux.

In this realistic picture, Peto returns to his favored allegorical subject of books in various states of disarray and decay. One book stands and catches a ray of direct light, only to reveal its peeling, wordless spine; the back cover of another thick and stubby volume-literally and figuratively-hangs by a thread. The Industrial Revolution was well underway when Peto painted this scene - these neglected objects are shown as remnants of a bygone past left behind in the wake of progress.