LANGLEY, Batty
£2,750 · Offered by Sokol Books
A very good copy of this beautifully illustrated and influential work on Neo-Gothic architecture from the library of the Earl of Guilford, Lord North, at Wroxton Abbey, bound with a very rare catalogue of the architectural works of the publisher. Batty Langley (baptised 14 September 1696 3 March 1751) was an English garden designer, and prolific writer who produced a number of engraved designs for Gothick structures, summerhouses and garden seats first half of the 18th century. He published extensively, and attempted to improve Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions. He inclined strongly towards a home-grown English architectural form, publishing articles in the Grub Street Journal under the pseudonym Hiram from July 1734 to March 1735, praising Gothic architecture (or as he termed it native Saxon ) and rejecting the imported Palladian architecture favoured by Lord Burlington and his circle. He published a wide range of architectural books, from a huge folio on Ancient Masonry in parts from 1733 to 1736 with over 450 plates, through The Builder s Complete Assistant of 1738 (also known as The Builder s Complete Chest-Book) and The Builder s Jewel of 1741, to the tiny The Workman s Golden Rule in 1750, in vicesimo-quarto. He is best known for this work Ancient Architecture, Restored, and Improved first published in 1742 and reissued in 1747 as Gothic Architecture, improved by Rules and Proportions. His book, with engravings by his brother Thomas Langley, attempted to
- Binding: Hardcover
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