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Allegorical frontispiece, 8 pages of text, with 28 plates and 8 pages of ads at the rear. (8vo) original plain blue wrappers. Custom box. A New [Third] Edition.

Third and final edition, an unaltered reprint from the first edition of 1767 and the second of c. 1790. Essentially a pattern book for architectural follies, this extraordinary work depicts and describes designs for huts, hermitages, grottoes, and other rural retreats in which many bizarre building materials, ranging from roots and moss to bones and wool, are incorporated. Some of the edifices are amazingly complex and imposing. Wrighte's text is terse but suggestive; of one structure he writes, "This design is calculated to be built on a small verdant amphitheatre, near a murmuring stream, and as a proper retreat from the fatigues of a sultry day." In the publisher's catalogue at the rear this title is one of 32 architectural and decorative pattern books; and the fact that it went into three editions over a period of 35 years indicates its perceived importance. Berlin Cat. 3420. Harris, British Architectural Books and Writers, 1556-1785, 953.