Philip Webb (1831-1915) was a British architect known as a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement and also a key member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. He was an important figure in the literary and artistic world of the late-nineteenth century. Webb had a long association, both professionally and personally, with William Morris and his family as well as becoming treasurer of Morris's revolutionary Socialist League. They first met as trainees in the same architect's practice and remained collaborators throughout their lifetimes. Webb was responsible for the design of the hugely influential Red House, the Morris's first home. It was through Morris that Webb became connected with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, amongst others. Webb and Morris were also joint founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), the first organization to promote conservation rather than intrusive restoration. This comprehensive selection from Webb's surviving letters includes many important and previously unpublished letters to some of his closest associates. They reveal the wide range of his professional and personal interests. These four volumes will be of interest to art and architecture historians, scholars of Victorian history in general and of William Morris and the wider Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts movements in particular.
Introduction to Volume One; Letters 1864-87, Introduction to Volume Two; Letters 1888-98, Introduction to Volume Three; Letters 1899-1902, Introduction to Volume Four; Letters 1903-14; Index. Correspondents include: Constance and Gertrude Astley, Louisa Macdonald Baldwin, Hugh Bell, Lowthian Bell, Detmar Blow, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Giacomo Boni, George Price Boyce, William Butterfield, Sydney Cockerell, Margaret Dickinson, Bella Duffy, Charles Faulkner, Kate Faulkner, Lucy Faulkner Orrinsmith, Lady Fitzhardinge, Mrs Wickham Flower, William Greenwell, John Hebb, George Howard, Charles Augustus Howell, Constantine Ionides, George Washington Jack, Edith Crosby Lethaby, W R (Richard) Lethaby, Jack Mackail, Jane Morris, Jenny Morris, May Morris, William Morris, Charles Fairfax Murray, Emma Morris Oldham, Augustus Pitt-Rivers, Alfred Powell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Alice Knewstub Rothenstein, William Rothenstein, John Ruskin, George Gilbert Scott, George Edmund Street, George Warington Taylor, Hugh Thackeray Turner, Emery Walker, Mary Jones Walker, George Wardle, George Frederic Watts, William Weir, William Hale White (`Mark Rutherford'), Percy Wyndham and many letters to clients and contractors, as well as letters written on behalf of the SPAB
Biography
John Aplin is an independent writer and researcher. He edited Pickering & Chatto's 5-volume collection The Correspondence and Journals of the Thackeray Family (2011).
