THE COUNTRY BUILDER'S ASSISTANT, FULLY EXPLAINING, THE BEST METHODS FOR STRIKING REGULAR AND QUIRKED MOULDINGS: FOR DRAWING AND WORKING THE TUSCAN, DORIC, IONIC AND CORINTHIAN ORDERS...CORRECTLY ENGRAVED ON THIRTY-SEVEN COPPERPLATES WITH A PRINTED EXP

by Benjamin, Asher:

Price: $8,500.00
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Book description: Boston: Printed by Spotswood and Etheridge, 1798.. [36]pp. plus thirty-seven plates (two folding). Small quarto. Contemporary calf, expertly rebacked with original gilt backstrip laid down and a modern leather label. Leaves professionally washed. 50% of plate 33 supplied in expert facsimile. Minor paper repair in margin of plate 32, image unaffected. Else very good. Second edition, after the exceedingly rare and virtually unprocurable Greenfield first edition printed the previous year, of the first original American book of architecture. Earlier architectural works printed in the United States were simply compilations or reprintings of British material (e.g. John Norman's TOWN AND COUNTRY BUILDER'S ASSISTANT of 1786). A classic and important American architectural treatise, by the man who was most responsible for disseminating late colonial details throughout New England, beautifully illustrated with engravings of colonial buildings, elevations of churches and homes, ornaments, cornices, etc., reflecting the influences of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. "[T]here is scarcely a village which in moulding profiles, cornice details, church spire, or farm-house does not reflect his influence" - DAB. Benjamin was a prolific architectural writer, and later published THE AMERICAN BUILDER'S COMPANION (1806), THE RUDIMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE (1814), and the very popular PRACTICAL HOUSE CARPENTER (1830). "The career of our first American architectural writer, Asher Benjamin (1773-1845), covered several decades of the early nineteenth century. Both the books he wrote and the buildings he designed had an influence on building in New England that is still visible. He probably will be best remembered for his popularization of the federal style through his early books (and the Greek revival in his later ones)" - Thompson. The first obtainable edition of the earliest architectural book written by an American and printed in the United States. DAB II, pp.179- 80. RINK 2484. EVANS 33399. HITCHCOCK 112. Neville Thompson, "Tools of Persuasion: The American Architectural Book of the Nineteenth Century" in THE AMERICAN ILLUSTRATED BOOK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1987), p.142.

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