Charterhouse; The Medieval Foundation in light of recent discoveries
London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1954. Quarto (10 inches tall), original maroon cloth, gilt title to spine and front board, illustrated endpapers, original dust jacket. Bookplate and presentation inscription to blank flyleaf, unclipped dust jacket with minor wear to corners and spine ends, including a closed tear with tape-repair to verso. Very good indeed. Item #1147
"ENSHRINING THE MEMORIES OF A MEDIEVAL MONASTERY AND ITS HEROIC MARTYRS TOGETHER WITH THOSE OF A GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOL"
First edition of this architectural history of the London Charterhouse—a 600 year-old Elizabethan mansion built on the site of a medieval abbey in the heart of London: "Its walls, in the course of the centuries, have sheltered More and Crashaw and Thackeray."
The Charterhouse was largely destroyed during the Blitz in 1940. This account of the post-war restoration by architects Lord Mottistone and Paul Paget was a collaboration between Dom David Knowles and Mr. W.F. Grimes, Director of Excavations to the Roman and Mediaeval London Excavations Council. This copy was inscribed in the year of publication by the architects for the Library at St. Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster.
The Introduction by Knowles (dated, "Peterhouse, / Cambridge / 21 March, 1953") declares, "historians of the Tudor period, Catholic hagiographers and the Old Carthusians of modern England have all alike good reason to take interest in the London Charterhouse" Knowles singles out four important books on the history of the house for special mention. The text consists of five sections: I. The Foundation of the London Charterhouse, II. The Growth of the Property and Buildings, III. The Rediscovery of the Monastic Plan, IV. The Excavation of 1948-9, V. The Buildings at the Time of the Suppression. The text is illustrated with photographs and plans, including a folding plan ("The London Charterhouse: The Monastic Church & Other Buildings") printed in red-and-black. Three lettered appendices follow the text with additional material. The illustrated dust jacket (and matching endpapers) reproduce an eighteenth-century engraving of the site by Sutton Nicholls.
Price: $95.00