The Beauties of Modern Architecture Illustrated by Forty-Eight Original Plates Designed Expressly for This Work
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1849. A New Edition. Hardbound. Blue boards with worn leather tips, black tape spine. 80 pp., followed by 48 bw plates, each with preceding text page. Poor, a binding copy that retains its original spine beneath the taped pseudo-spine, but lacks it's original boards (these having been replaced). To rebind this nicely would cost about $250 very readable and usable as-is. Exlibrary copy with stamps on text block edge. The whole contained in a custom clam-shell box. Item #127282
Charles Wood described this edition as follows: "Originally published 1835, all editions are rare. It consists of a section entitled “Architectural history” extracted from Elmes’s Dictionary, a glossary of names and terms used in architecture from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and a series of exquisitely drawn and engraved designs for doors, windows, and partitions, the orders, etc. Of particular interest is a new Greek order of Lafever’s own invention (illus in Hamlin, pl. XCI). “It is in The Beauties that the true talent of Lafever reaches final maturity...here Lafever’s genius appears at its fullest.” (Hamlin, Greek revival architecture in America, pp. 351--2)."
Price: $600.00