Ware, Samuel
A treatise of the properties of arches, and their abutment piers … also concerning bridges, and the flying buttresses of cathedrals (etc).
London, J.Taylor (etc) 1809.
Full Description
8vo. ix + (3) + 62pp, 19 folding engraved plates, with an eight-page catalogue of the Taylor firm’s architectural publications (”A list of books on the various branches of architecture and building”) bound in at the end. Original boards, traces of printed label on spine. The Signet Library copy, with its pages untrimmed and unopened as issued.
First edition. This very competent book on the load-bearing properties of arches, piers and buttresses, written by the young London architect Samuel Ware (1781-1860), is interesting for choosing as examples the arches and flying buttresses of various major mediaeval churches, including King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and Trinity Church, Ely, both visited by Ware when “on professional business in the neighbourhood”. BAL Cat 3588. The Taylor firm catalogue bound in at the end of this copy appears to be the earliest Taylor catalogue so far recorded that was issued under a title beginning “A List of Books”, and certainly predates the similar catalogue which is BAL Cat 3269 (there assigned to 1811 ?). It also predates the quarto format catalogue which is BAL Cat 3268.