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Published by Bates & Guild Company, Boston, 1898
Seller: William Reese Company - Americana, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
Two volumes. [6],80pp. plus fifty photographic plates; [4],52,[8]pp., including numerous in-text illustrations and plans, plus 100 loose photographic plates. Each plate is 9 1/2 x 12 inches and mounted on a heavy card, 15 1/2 x 19 inches. Half titles. Large folio. Gathered signatures, laid into original half cloth and paper board portfolios, paper labels on covers. Portfolios shaken and worn, particularly along spines. Minor dust soiling in margins. A few plates with slightly greater edge wear. Contemporary ownership inscription on paper labels. Overall, images bright and clean. Very good. From an edition limited to 500 copies. An impressive tour of Boston municipal architecture, divided into two parts. The first part features "schoolhouse architecture" almost entirely, while the second part features hospitals, institutions, and miscellaneous buildings. The text accompanying each portfolio offers a detailed description of the buildings illustrated in the large plates. In the plates, the buildings are usually shown from the front; but these views are often supplemented by side, detail, or interior shots. Some of the plates are photographic reproductions of relevant architectural plans. "Wheelwright's architectural imagination was wide; he sought the monumental, the classic solution. Stylistically he was catholic, even erratic. Some of his schools are Italianate, some Georgian, some rather nondescript; the half-timber of the hospitals and the Marine Park Bath House [illustrated here] is blatant.Yet in all the work there is counter-trend apparent, based on strict practicality and basic simplicity; and some of the municipal work, like the Hook and Ladder House No. 1 and the Eustic School [both also shown here], has a colonial style remarkably pure and charming for its date" - DAB. An unparalleled visual exhibition of Boston civic infrastructure at the close of the 19th century, and an important American architectural work. Wheelwright is perhaps best known for being a founding member of the Harvard Lampoon. He later designed the publication's enigmatic Lampoon Castle in 1909. DAB XX, pp.61-62.