Pugin, A.W.N.
A treatise on chancel screens and rood lofts, their antiquity, use, and symbolic significance.
London, Charles Dolman 1851.
Full Description
4to. viii + 124pp, 14 litho plates incl. frontispiece. Publisher’s blind-stamped cloth, spine neatly repaired. Ownership inscription of Edmund G.Wood, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1863, also nineteenth century oval ownership stamps of P.G.Ward. Recently Prof. John House’s copy, with presentation inscription to him (from his mother) Christmas 1960.
First and only edition of this remarkable book by Pugin which combines architectural and liturgical scholarship with a deep detestation of contemporary trends in worship that would eliminate the physical divisions between naves and chancels. As Pugin puts it, “if any man says he loves pointed architecture, and hates screens, I do not hesitate to denounce him as a liar”. His text is a mixture of real learning and enjoyable abuse of “ambonoclasts”, ancient and modern.