A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600‐1840 (4th edition)

It is difficult for the reviewer to add anything to the plaudits that earlier editions of this work received. Beginning life in 1954 as A Biographical Dictionary of English Architects 1600‐1840, and with later editions appearing under the present title in 1978 and 1995, this fourth edition adds 64 newly identified architects to the text as well as several hundred additional buildings. Many of the additional architects are chiefly of local interest, but they include one major discovery of a hitherto unknown gentleman architect, John Osborne (d. 1629) who, according to the Preface, “was making correct Vitruvian designs before...