"First published on the occasion of the exhibition ... Royal Academy of Arts, London, 11 September-3 December 1999"--Title page verso.

"Sir John Soane (1753-1837) has come to be regarded as one of the great architects of late 18th and early 19th century Europe, and contemporary architects and designers are becoming increasingly influenced by the subtleties of the unique 'Soane style'. Dorothy Stroud's classic book, which is appearing in paperback for the first time, in an updated second edition, is the culmination of a lifetime's research. It brings together all the threads in her previous writings on Soane, combining a concise biography of the architect with a comprehensive and fully illustrated survey of his works. After studying in Italy, Soane built up a considerable private practice and a reputation that secured his appointment in 1788 as architect to the Bank of England, where over a period of forty-five years he designed a vast complex of courts and offices. With his appointment to the Office of Works in 1815, he became responsible for public buildings in Whitehall and Westminster, which entailed the designing of a Royal entrance and gallery in the House of Lords, new Law Courts, Privy Council Offices and a State Paper Office. As professor of architecture at the Royal Academy from 1806, he was to play a leading role in the improvement of architectural education in Britain; and he was active in the founding of what is now the Royal Institute of British Architects. Although much of his work was thoughtlessly destroyed towards the end of the 19th century, a substantial number of buildings and parts of buildings survive, especially outside London, as a testimony to his genius" -- Amazon.

In 1812 the architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837) wrote a strange and perplexing manuscript, Crude Hints towards an History of my House in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in which, in the guise of an Antiquary, he imagines his home as a future ruin, inspected by visitors speculating on its origins and function. Never published in his lifetime, the manuscript has been meticulously transcribed and provided with an explanatory Introduction and footnotes by Helen Dorey, Deputy Director and Inspectress of Sir John Soane's Museum. Originally published as part of an exhibition catalogue sixteen years ago, this new edition has been extensively revised and updated. The text is accompanied by nineteen illustrations, seventeen of them in full colour.

Strongly interdisciplinary in its scope, this book situates Soane’s house-museum within the broader context of early nineteenth-century British aesthetics, theories of taste, and cultural currents, viewing it as a cultural and artistic product as well as an architectural and museological one.

Through examinations of internationally-renowned architects, Bradbury demonstrates that Sir John Soane’s influence has been truly international in the pre-modern era, reaching throughout the British Isles and beyond to North America and even colonial Australia. Through his inclusion of select, detailed case studies, Bradbury contends that Soane’s is a continuing, not negated, legacy in architecture.