The slant top desk can be considered in some ways as the ancestor or the little brother, of the secretary desk for it is for all practical purposes a secretary desk without the massive bookcase on top of it. It can also be considered as the descendant, in form, of the desk on a frame, which was a form of portable desk in earlier eras. In some places the slant top desk is known as a "bureau" desk, and in others it goes under the name of slope-front desk. In the United States, the slant top desk is sometimes called a Governor Winthrop desk, in memory of John Winthrop, the 17th century governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The slant top desk is also called a slant front desk.

Like the Wooton desk, the fall front desk and others with an hinged desktop (and unlike closable desks with an unmovable desktop like the rolltop desk or the cylinder desk) all documents and various items must be removed from the work surface of the slant-top desk before closing up.

The slant-top desk has been handcrafted in a variety of styles, the most famous being probably the block front seashell desk of the 18th century which was popular among the well-to-do of Colonial America.

The slant-top desk has also been mass produced in a great quantity of sub-forms and materials. For instance, some slant top desks have very crude chains or levers to hold the desktop in an open working position, while others have elegant sliders which are manually or automatically extended to give support.

See also the list of desk forms and types.

References

• Aronson, Joseph. The Encyclopedia of Furniture. 3rd ed. New York: Crown Publishers, 1966.
• Boyce, Charles. Dictionary of Furniture. 2nd ed. New York: Roundtable Press Book, 2001.
• Gloag, John. A Complete Dictionary of Furniture. Woodstock, N.Y. : Overlook Press, 1991.
• Romand, Didier. L'argus des meubles. Paris: Balland, 1976.