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 Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive

By RUSSELL STURGIS, A.M., Ph.D.

Fellow of the American Institute of Architects

And many Architects, Painters, Engineers, and other expert Writers, American and Foreign

Cloth, $18.00 net per set Half morocco, $30.00 net per set

COMMENTS OF THE PRESS

"Ambitious in scope and ample in bulk, the present work bids for wide acceptance among the general as well as the technical public. It is practically the only considerable effort to supply encroaching demands for a compendium which shall be at once convenient as to form and complete in the matter of contents. The aim of its compilers has evidently been to strike an average between that which is popular and that which is for the specialist, and in this they have shown sagacity. Edited under the direct supervision of Mr. Russell Sturgis,—who has contributed a momentous proportion of the material,—the work has enlisted the services of some sixty current authorities."—

"Mr. Russell Sturgis is the editor of this important work, and has had the cooperation of such men as Dr. Cleveland Abbe, Edward Atkinson, E. H. Blashfield, Henry Van Brunt, . . . and others, each of them eminent in some department of knowledge rendering his aid valuable. It is somewhat remarkable that there is in English no other dictionary of architecture, excepting a work in eight volumes said to have been begun about 1850 and to have been completed only ten years ago. There is room, therefore, for a modern, scholarly, and reasonably complete work of this class.

"The present volume, the first of the three proposed, covers the letters A to E, inclusive. It is comprehensive, concise, although sufficiently full, untechnical, and easily used. The desirable line between too scrupulous terseness and too much elaboration of definition or description has been drawn ordinarily with great success. There is no hesitation to give space for desirable comment, as in what is written under 'Builder,' for instance, but brevity has been kept in view throughout the work, and its cross-references facilitate its use. The tiles are in heavy type and at once catch the eye. Illustrations, numerous and appropriate, some of full-page size, abound, and all in all the work will meet very satisfactorily a real and important public need."—

"Thanks to Mr. Russell Sturgis and a corps of competent assistants, we now have in 'A Dictionary of Architecture and Building: Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive' a much more valuable work than could have been hoped for. . . . Several things are at once noticeable about this work—the terseness and lucidity of its articles and definitions; the extraordinary range of its subjects, from the arch of Septimius Severus to modern apartment houses and tenements, and from St. Paul's, London, and the Doge's palace in Venice, to a crib for hay such as one finds in rural England, and a peasant's hut in Asia Minor; the beauty of the illustrations, and particularly the readiness with which they elucidate the accompanying definitions and accounts; and the elaborate system of cross-references, through which a glance at an article on any phase of a given subject points the way at once to accounts of other related terms and their uses.

"Perhaps the thoroughly modern spirit which dominates and inspires the whole work is the feature that distinguishes this book most strongly from the works in other languages which the seeker for definitions hitherto has perforce consulted. The writers of these articles are scholarly men, but they are something more than scholars. They are not living in the past; they are doing their work in the world to-day, and their point of view and their tone is a most satisfactory and practical mixture of culture with the recognition of the needs of the average American. An important feature of this work will be the series of articles on the typical architecture of different countries. Some of those in the present volume deal with the architectures of Australia, Denmark, and England, while, to judge from cross-references, the one in the final volume on the architecture of the United States will be ambitious, elaborate, and inclusive. The connection of this work with modern building is shown by the two long articles on the 'Apartment House" and 'Electrical Appliances.' Modern edifices are as seriously considered as the ancient monuments described and pictured by Viollet-le-Duc. . . . Now that it has appeared, this dictionary, many of whose articles extend to the dimensions of those in encyclopædias, becomes indispensable in its field."—