Richard Norman Shaw

`If I could get myself to believe that my half-timbered work and tall chimneys were in any way my own, I should sit up on my hind legs and purr away like our Tom cat John.' -Norman shaw to J. D. Sedding, 1881

Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) was the most fertile and immediately influential domestic architect of the late Victorian period in England. His training and early career coincided with the heyday of the Gothic Revival, in which style he designed a handful of original churches. His most prolific period of practice saw the triumph of `Old English' and `Queen Anne'-domestic styles always associated with his name. A seried of powerful urban buildings designed towards the end of Shaw's career reveal him as one of the foremost proponents of a revived classicism.

The piquant originality and changefulness of Norman Shaw's designs, the brilliance of his planning and the charm of his personality captivated his contemporaries in the architectural and social world alike. The pre-eminent English architect of his day, he was the precursor of such different talents as Lutyens and Voysey. In the United States, Shaw's distinctive contribution to English domestic architecture played a formative part in the evolution of the Shingle Style.

This is the second edition of the monograph that first appeared under the Yale imprint in 1976. The new edition has been fully revised and includes many fine colour photographs specially commissioned from Martin Charles.

`A peach of a book about a brilliant and wholly delightful man'.---Sir John Betjeman, Books and Bookmen

`A masterpiece among architectural biographies'.---Sir Simon Jenkins, Evening Standard

`Outstanding...a most readable biography as well as a scholarly assessment of Shaw's work'.---Adam Fergusson, Sunday Times

`This superb study establishes Andrew Saint as one of the leading architectural historians in this country...No review can hope to do justice to this splendid book'.---David Watkin, Apollo

Andrew Saint is the General Editor of The Survey of London. His other books include The Image of the Architect (1983), Towards A Social Architecture: The Role of School-Building in Post-War England (1987) and Architect and Engineer: A Study in Sibling Rivalry (2007), all published by Yale University Press.