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3 vols. in 1. Folio (400 x 260 mm). Two vols with Title page, Preface and a Description of the Plates, each followed by 60 full page copper plate engravings, all plates numbered, signed and with imprints dated '1757'; final vol with Title page, Introduction (iii - viii), Description of the plates beginning 'Of the Orders in General' (pp. 1 - 16) followed by 65 numbered plates. Later calf-backed marbled boards, spine with compartments and black morocco label bearing titles in gilt, board edges tooled in gilt. [PROVENANCE: Label of Doddington Library to front pastedown]. Abraham Swan's extensive two volume study of domestic architectural designs, 'A Collection of Designs', bound here with his seminal work on staircases, 'The British Architect . ' . The two volume 'Collection of Designs' - the second of three pattern books published by Swan, a carpenter and joiner - was his attempt to provide an inexpensive pattern book of inexpensive designs. Swan made his intentions of quantity over quality clear in his Preface: 'I hope that whatever defects may be observed in any of them will be candidly excused, considering what a number of designs are contained in these two volumes, and that they are all of my own contriving and drawing.' 'The first volume contains 4 engravings of the staircase at Blair Castle, Perthshire, which Swan designed for the Duke of Atholl, 1757. Two Chinese Bridges for the grounds at Blair appear in the second volume. Swan's designs belong to the 'rococo' taste popular in the mid-18th century'. (Weinreb). Swan's comprehensive work 'The British Architect' - first published 1745, here in the 3rd edition - was destined to be the first architectural book published in America. The title page of the earlier edition described the author as 'Abraham Swan, Carpenter', later changed to 'Abraham Swan, Architect.' The work includes the following: 'I. An easier, more intelligible, and expeditious Method of drawing the Five Orders, than has been hitherto been published, by a Scale of Twelve equal Parts, free from those troublesome Divisions call'd Aliqu(o)t Parts. Shewing also how to glue up their Columns and Capitals. II. Likewise Stair-Cases, (those most useful, ornamental, and necessary Parts of a Building, though never before sufficiently described in any Book, Ancient or Modern); shewing their most convenient Situation, and the Form of their Ascending in the most grand Manner: With a great Variety of curious Ornaments, whereby any Gentleman may fix on what will suit him best, there being Examples of all Kinds; and necessary Directions for such Persons as are unacquainted with the Branch. III. Designs of Arches, Doors, and Windows. IV. A great Variety of New and Curious Chimney-Pieces, in the most elegant and modern Taste. V. Corbels, Shields, and other beautiful Decorations. VI. Several useful and necessary Rules of Carpentry; with the Manner of Truss'd Roofs, and the Nature of a splay'd circular Soffit, both in a streight and circular Wall, never published before. Together with Raking Cornices, Groins, and Angle Brackets, described.' (From the title-page). Across all three volumes, the title page imprint has been altered, Meadows and Hitch and Hawes erased and replaced, in ink manuscript, with 'Mr Brotherton' and 'Buckland at the Buck'. 'This is one of the books that had great influence on the builders and architects of eighteenth-century America.' (Fowler). [Park 80 / 79 (first edition, 1745, but citing other eds. including the present); RIBA Early Printed Books 3220; Fowler 341 (second American edition, 1794); Weinreb 1:166; Millard Architectural Collection Vol. 2, 82; Berlin 2285].
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