4to. (274 x 213 mm.) Bound in late nineteenth-century quarter dark green cloth over grey paper-covered boards, sometime re-backed preserving the greater part of the backstrip, recent paper title label to the spine; [i-iii]iv-vi; [1]2-50; [1], 2-144 pp., 15 engraved plates, including a folding frontispiece and two other folding plates; light age-toning to the fore-edges, a very light, old water-stain to the upper and lower edges of the first fifty pages, 2 mm. stab hole to the centre of pp. 9/10, otherwise a clean copy.

Second, enlarged edition. First published in 1753, three months after the death of the author, with the title A Series Of Particular And Useful Observations ... Made ... Upon ... The Cathedral-Church of Salisbury. From 1738, as clerk of works for the cathedral, Price had conducted a comprehensive survey of the fabric of the building. From his findings Price not only effected repairs to the structure but also deduced that the tower and the spire were not part of the original plan. In the Architectural Review of November 1953, Peter Ferriday noted that the 1753 edition was the first serious study of a Gothic building. Harris and Savage also note that the sectional drawings within are among ‘the earliest analytical renderings of a Gothic building’.

The present edition was issued with a new title and enlarged with a copious amount of material culled from Price’s manuscripts as well as much of antiquarian interest concerning Old Sarum, and the monuments and gravestones within the cathedral.

Harris/Savage 706

Stock number: 1141