Rare Rawlins Familiar Architecture

RAWLINS, Thomas.  FAMILIAR ARCHITECTURE; OR, ORIGINAL DESIGNS OF HOUSES, FOR GENTLEMEN AND TRADESMEN.

London: I. and J. Taylor, 1789. Folio. Quarter-calf, marbled boards. 30, (4) pages, 51 engraved plates. Second edition. [Harris, 731; Schimmelman, Architectural Books in Early America, 112].

First published in 1768, all editions of Rawlins' work are rare.  The book espouses the Palladian design and shows patterns for parsonages, summer retreats, banqueting-rooms, and churches, as well as domestic houses intended for middle class residents -- whether gentlemen of leisure, merchants or superior tradesmen.  This distinguishes it from the majority of pattern books published in the second half of the eighteenth century that features grand country houses, villas and country cottages.  There is also a section on the masonry of semicircular and elliptical arches.  Schimmelman locates copies in America before 1800.  The four pages at the rear is a catalogue for J. Taylor's Architectural Library.  Bookplate.  Sympathetically rebacked.  Light sporadic foxing, else a very good copy.

$6,850.00