THE ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS OF SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN AT ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD: A Complete Catalogue.

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original light blue cloth with black titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. With a colour plate of Sir Christopher Wren's death mask to the half-title, a colour frontispiece, two colour plates in the introductory essay, and 453 colour plates throughout. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth just a little marked, with light wrinkling to the spine joints and a touch of rubbing to the spine tips. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed and spine-faded dustwrapper, that is otherwise without loss or tears. Publisher's price (£85.00) on a faded label to the lower-left of the rear panel.

Anthony Geraghty (Art History Lecturer at the University of York) presents the complete collection of Sir Christopher Wren's architectural drawings, housed at All Souls College, University of Oxford. It is the first publication to reproduce the whole collection in colour. 'The collection reveals how Wren went about designing one of the largest buildings in Christendom - St Paul's Cathedral; how he rebuilt fifty parish churches after the Great Fire of London; and how he furnished England with some of its best-loved public buildings, including Hampton Court Palace, the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, and the Library at Trinity College, Cambridge. The drawings also shed light on the internal workings of Wren's office. Geraghty introduces us to Wren's team of assistants and draughtsmen, including the young Nicholas Hawksmoor, who spent the first twenty years of his career in Wren's office' (publisher's blurb).