Rare autograph letter in which the architect presents the book that he co-wrote with his fellow medievalist George Gilbert Scott. Burges (1827-1881) has come to be seen as perhaps the pre-eminent dreamer of the ‘Victorian dream of the Middle Ages’ as Betjeman put it. According to J Mordaunt Crook, author of William Burges and the High Victorian Dream, most of Burges’s letters have been destroyed, making this an appealing survival.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Small bifolium (11x18cm) written on 15 Buckingham Street headed paper - Burges’s practice and home at this time. Old folds. Written on two sides of the paper in black ink to a ‘Miss E Seddon’, Burges prepares her for the arrival of ‘a small package containing three books’. Two contain cuttings which Burges asks to be returned ‘as I shall want to refer to them for my... coming lectures at the Society of Arts’ (entitled ’Art Applied to Industry’, these covered the design of glass, pottery, brass etc). Also contained within the parcel was George Gilbert Scott’s Gleanings from Westminster, 1861, which has extensive supplementary work by Burges: ‘The other book is Scotts Westminster of which I beg your acceptance and I have even ventured to write your name on the fly leaf’, explaining that ‘the work contained a very considerable portion of my writing’ and mentioning that Scott is happy for him to inscribe copies thus.
CONTEXT The architect John Pollard Seddon commissioned several brooches from Burges in the year of this letter, 1864, as presents to the bridesmaids at his wedding to Margaret Barber, raising the possibility that this Miss Seddon may be a female relative and perhaps even one of those lucky bridesmaids - one of these Seddon brooches was recently acquired by the V&A after appearing on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. Burges’ reputation continues to go from strength to strength as a designer of genius who famously remarked:’I was brought up in the thirteenth century belief and in that belief I intend to die.’
