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Summary
Author: Britton, J. & Pugin, A.
Title: Illustrations of the public buildings of London : with historical and descriptive notices of each edifice.
Publication: London, for J.Taylor (etc) 1825, 1828 (but issued in parts 1823 onwards).
Price: £495
Reference: 09970
Full Description
8vo. 2 vols. Engraved title, xvi + (2) + (344) (numbered 1-336, 33*-40*)pp, engraved map, (64) engraved plates ; engraved title, xxxii + 330 + (6) pp, (79) engraved plates. (The map, normally found in vol.2, is here bound near the beginning of vol.1, while the four unnumbered pages of index which serve as an index to the map are bound at the end of vol.2). Text in clean condition throughout, but plates spotted (as often), principally at outer margins. Contemporary diced cloth, neatly rebacked. Edwin Beresford Chancellor's copy, with his pencil ownership inscription on a blank preliminary leaf to vol.2, and his pencil initials and acquisition date on the front free endpaper of vol.1.
First edition. Britton and Pugin's Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London, issued in parts between 1823 and 1828, provides descriptions and accurate linear illustrations and plans of recent buildings as well as more historic ones, and it thus records major works by such architects as Soane, Smirke, Nash and Decimus Burton, as well as a number of now vanished buildings including John Newman's Roman Catholic chapel in Moorfields, Robert Abraham's County Fire Office, and Wilkins and Gandy's United University Club. It also provides particularly good coverage of the architecture of London theatres, and concludes with an essay by Britton on the architecture of London's six bridges. Other contributors of explanatory text include Joseph Gwilt, J.B.Papworth, E.W.Brayley, and W.H.Leeds. Although the plates of this particular copy are spotted, as often, it is shown by a pencil ownership inscription to have belonged to Edwin Beresford Chancellor FSA (1868-1937), a prolific writer on London topography whose publications included particularly useful books on London squares and on now vanished aristocratic town houses. BAL Cat 424 ; Adams, London Illustrated 146.