Contrasts. Or A Parallel Between The Noble Edifices Of The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Centuries, And Similar Buildings Of The Present Day; Shewing The Present Decay Of Taste. . Pugin, A. Welby [Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin] Architecture,England,Gothic Revival,History,Illustrated Books

First edition of Pugin's monumental work which arguably defined the Gothic Revival in architecture. Belcher declared it "Pugin's most original, characteristic and influential book." Ferrey's biography of Pugin noted that Pugin published the work himself as he could not "find a publisher who would incur the responsibility of giving to the world a work so strongly seasoned with personal abuse." "Only Pugin was prepared to project the romantic retrospective vision of the medieval world on the present and the future, to urge a complete revival of the Church and the arts of the Middle Ages . . . . Contrasts appeared on 4 August, a date that marked the beginning of Pugin's public career and the effective end of Georgian architecture." Hill, God's Architect (2007, pgs. 158-59). 4to. iv, 50pp. + 16 plates. Belcher A3.1. Very good in contemporary cloth, spine reinforced with later linen, with scattered foxing throughout, primarily to edges. Scarce in commerce.