Cambridge Library Collection - Art and Architecture
2 total works
James Elmes (1782-1862), the son of a builder, trained at the Royal Academy Schools as an architectural designer, but his career encompassed publishing and writing on architecture as well. A friend of Benjamin Robert Haydon and his circle, he was the first publisher (in his Annals of Fine Arts) of Keats' most famous odes. This work - the first biography of Wren - was published in 1823, and is dedicated to the President and Fellows of the Royal Society, of which Wren was a founder member in 1660. Elmes based his work on the so-called 'Parentalia', or notes on the Wren family compiled by his son (also Christopher), and privately printed by his grandson Stephen in 1750. Elmes puts Wren's life and works into the context of the intellectual ferment of Restoration England, and combines the narrative of Wren's life with an architectural commentary on his most important works.
James Elmes (1782-1862), the son of a builder, trained at the Royal Academy Schools as an architectural designer, but his career encompassed publishing and writing on architecture as well. A friend of Benjamin Robert Haydon and his circle, he was the first publisher (in his Annals of Fine Arts) of Keats' most famous odes. He was also the first biographer of Sir Christopher Wren (that book is also reissued in this series), and in this 1827 work he celebrates the architectural developments of the Regency (the book is dedicated to George IV), which he clearly feels are as beautiful and as transformative of the cityscape as were Wren's new buildings after the Great Fire of 1666. The illustrations are by architectural draughtsman Thomas H. Shepherd (1793-1864), and the volume's success led to his producing several more books of views of modern cities, including Edinburgh, Bath and Bristol.