Willis, Robert & Clark, John Willis
The architectural history of the University of Cambridge, and of the colleges of Cambridge and Eton… edited with large additions and brought up to the present time by John Willis Clark.
Cambridge, University Press 1886.
Full Description
Large 8vo. 4 vols. xxxvi+cxxxiv+(2)+630pp, 19 engraved plates, some double-page ; xiii+(3)+776pp, 32 plates, some double-page, 1 colour ; xi+(1)+722pp, 5 plates, one of which double-page ; vipp, (30) engraved plates, 14 of which double-page, 4 single-page, and 12 with printed tracing paper overlays (9 of those colour). Publisher’s cloth, spines gilt. Spine of first volume neatly repaired at lower joint. A good set. Bookplates of Henry Stuart Maclean Jack, 1908. Subsequently Sir Howard Colvin’s copy, with a lengthy list of corrections in his handwriting loosely inserted.
Sir Howard Colvin’s good set of this full and still valuable account of the architectural history of the University of Cambridge and its colleges, originally put in hand by the Rev. Robert Willis (1800-1875), Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, who Nikolaus Pevsner regarded as the greatest English architectural historian of the nineteenth century. The text originated as a lecture that Willis had given to the Archaeological Institute, but he died before the book was complete, and bequeathed his manuscript to his nephew and Cambridge University colleague John Willis Clark. Clark carried out detailed research, corroborated and edited Willis’ text, and eventually produced this monumental work, well illustrated with plates taken from Le Keux’s Memorials of Cambridge. The set includes the accompanying volume of plans.