“Thanks to Mr. Russell Sturgis and a corps of competent assistants, we now have in ‘A Dictionary of Architecture and Building: Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive’ a much more valuable work than could have been hoped for.... Several things are at once noticeable about this work--the terseness and lucidity of its articles and definitions; the extraordinary range of its subjects, from the arch of Septimius Severus to modern apartment houses and tenements, and from St. Paul’s, London, and the Doge’s palace in Venice, to a crib for hay such as one finds in rural England, and a peasant’s hut in Asia Minor; the beauty of the illustrations, and particularly the readiness with which they elucidate the accompanying definitions and accounts; and the elaborate system of cross-references, through which a glance at an article on any phase of a given subject points the way at once to accounts of other related terms and their uses. “Perhaps the thoroughly modern spirit which dominates and inspires the whole work is the feature that distinguishes this book most strongly from the works in other languages which the seeker for definitions hitherto has perforce consulted. The writers of these articles are scholarly men, but they are something more than scholars. They are not living in the past; they are doing their work in the world to-day, and their point of view and their tone is a most satisfactory and practical mixture of culture with the recognition of the needs of the average American. An important feature of this work will be the series of articles on the typical architecture of different countries. Some of those in the present volume deal with the architectures of Australia, Denmark, and England, while, to judge from cross-references, the one in the final volume on the architecture of the United States will be ambitious, elaborate, and inclusive. The connection of this work with modern building is shown by the two long articles on the ‘Apartment House’ and ‘Electrical Appliances.’ Modern edifices are as seriously considered as the ancient monuments described and pictured by Viollet-le-Duc.... Now that it has appeared, this dictionary, many of whose articles extend to the dimensions of those in encyclopædias, becomes indispensable in its field.”--BOSTON HERALD. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 64–66 Fifth Avenue, New York FOOTNOTES: [1] _Cronica di Giovanni Villani_, bk. 6, chap. 69. [2] Cf. Introduction to Villari’s _Niccolo Machiavelli and his Times_, London, 1878. [3] Cf. Montalembert, _Les Moines d’Occident_, vol. 2, p. 488 _et seq._ [4] Cf. my _Development and Character of Gothic Architecture_, pp. 304–306. [5] The Gothic of northern France of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the only true Gothic art, is here meant.