Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir
Nikolaus Pevsner CBE (
January 30,
1902 –
August 18,
1983) was a German-born British
historian of art and, especially,
architecture.
The son of a
Jewish merchant, Pevsner was born in
Leipzig,
Saxony. He studied
art history at the Universities of
Leipzig,
Munich,
Berlin, and
Frankfurt/Main in Germany (PhD 1924), worked at the
Dresden Gallery (1924â€"28) and taught at
Göttingen University (1929â€"33). In 1934, he moved to
England to escape
Nazism and taught at
London,
Oxford,
Birmingham and
Cambridge universities. He assumed British citizenship in 1946.
He is best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides,
The Buildings of England (1951-74), one of the great achievements of 20th-century art scholarship.
Pevsner conceived and edited the
Pelican History of Art series (1953â€"), many individual volumes of which are regarded as classics.
In 1958, Pevsner was a founder member of
The Victorian Society, the national charity for the study and protection and Victorian and Edwardian architecture and other arts.
He died in
London.
Research papers and correspondence relating to Pevsner's first job in a British university, after leaving Germany, can be found at the
University of Birmingham Special Collections but are as yet uncatalogued.
Academies of Art, Past and Present (1940)
An Outline of European Architecture (1943)
Pioneers of Modern Design (1949; originally published in 1936 under the title
Pioneers of the Modern Movement)
The Buildings of England (1951-74)
The Englishness of English Art (1956)
The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design (1968)
A History of Building Types (1976)
After moving to England, Pevsner found that the study of architectural history had little status in academic circles, and the amount of information available, especially to travellers wanting to inform themselves about the architecture of a particular district, was limited. He conceived a project to write a series of comprehensive county guides to rectify this, and gained the backing of
Allen Lane, founder of
Penguin Books, for whom he had written his
Outline of European Architecture. Work on the series began in 1945. Lane employed two part-time assistants, both German refugee art historians, who prepared notes for Pevsner from published sources. Pevsner spent the academic holidays touring the country to make personal observations and carry out local research, before writing up the finished volumes. The first volume was published in 1951. Pevsner wrote 32 of the books himself and 10 with collaborators, with a further 4 of the original series written by others. Since his death, work has continued on the series, with several volumes now in their third revision.
The books are compact and intended to meet the needs of both specialists and the general reader. Each contains an extensive introduction to the architectural history and styles of the area, followed by a town-by-town - and in the case of larger settlements, street-by-street - account of individual buildings. The guides offer both detailed coverage of the most notable buildings and notes on lesser-known and
vernacular buildings; all building types are covered but there is a particular emphasis on churches and public buildings. Each volume has a central section with several dozen pages of photographs, originally in black and white, though colour illustrations have featured in revised volumes since 2003.
The list below is of the volumes that were in print in 2006. The original volumes are gradually being replaced with new editions in a larger format, updated to reflect architectural-history scholarship since the first publications of the guides and to include significant new buildings. The dates after each title are of the first publication and of any revised edition. All are now published by the
Yale University Press. The volumes for Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, the London City Churches, Manchester and Sheffield are part of the parallel "Pevsner City Guides" series, a more heavily illustrated paperback format.
Bath (2003) (Michael Forsyth)
Bedfordshire, Huntingdon & Peterborough (1968)
Berkshire (1966)
Buckinghamshire (1960;1994) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson)
Cambridgeshire (1954;1970)
Cheshire (1971) ISBN 0140710426 (with Edward Hubbard)
Cornwall (1951;1970)
County Durham (1953;1983) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson)
Cumberland & Westmorland (1967)
Derbyshire (1953;1978) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson)
Devon (1952;1989)
Dorset (1972) (with John Newman)
Essex (1954;1965) (rev. Enid Radcliffe)
Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds (1970;1999) (David Verey, rev. Alan Brooks)
Gloucestershire: The Vale & Forest of Dean (1970;2002) (David Verey, rev. Alan Brooks)
Hampshire & The Isle of Wight (1967) (with David Lloyd)
Herefordshire (1963)
Hertfordshire (1953;1977) (rev. Bridget Cherry)
Kent: North East & East (1969;1983) (John Newman)
Kent: West & the Weald (1969;1976) (John Newman)
Lancashire: Liverpool & the South-West (2006) ISBN 0300109105 (with Richard Pollard)
Lancashire: Manchester & the South-East (2004) ISBN 0300105835 (with Clare Hartwell and Matthew Hyde)
North Lancashire (1969)
Leicestershire & Rutland (1960;1984) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson)
Lincolnshire (1964;1989) (with John Harris, rev. Nicholas Antram)
Liverpool (2003) (Joseph Sharples)
London 1: The City of London (1997) ISBN 0300096240 (with Simon Bradley)
London 2: South (1983) ISBN 0300096518 (with Bridget Cherry)
London 3: North-West (1991) ISBN 0300096526 (with Bridget Cherry)
London 4: North (1998) ISBN 0300096534 (with Bridget Cherry)
London 5: East (2004) ISBN 0300107013 (with Bridget Cherry and Charles O'Brien)
London 6: Westminster (2003) ISBN 0300095953 (with Simon Bradley)
London City Churches (1998) (Simon Bradley)
Manchester (2001) ISBN 0300096666 (Clare Hartwell)
Norfolk 1: Norwich & North East (1962;1997) (rev. Bill Wilson)
Norfolk 2: South & West (1962;1999) (rev. Bill Wilson)
Northamptonshire (1961;1973) (rev. Bridget Cherry)
Northumberland (1957;1992) (with Ian A. Richmond, rev. John Grundy, Grace McCombie, Peter Ryder and Humphrey Welfare)
Nottinghamshire (1951;1979) (rev. Elizabeth Williamson)
Oxfordshire (1974) (with Jennifer Sherwood)
Sheffield (2004) (Ruth Harman and John Minnis) ISBN 0300105851
Shropshire (1958)
Somerset: North & Bristol (1958)
Somerset: South & West (1958)
Staffordshire (1974) ISBN 0140710469
Suffolk (1961;1974) (rev. Enid Radcliffe)
Surrey (1962;1971) (with
Ian Nairn, rev. Bridget Cherry)
Sussex (1965) (with Ian Nairn)
Warwickshire (1966) (with Alexandra Wedgwood)
Wiltshire (1963;1971) (rev. Bridget Cherry)
Worcestershire (1968)
Yorkshire: The North Riding (1966)
Yorkshire: The West Riding (1959;1967) (rev. Enid Radcliffe)
Yorkshire: York & East Riding (1972;1995) (rev. David Neave)
The series continued under Pevsner's name into Scotland. The format is largely similar, however only
Lothian was published in the original small volume style. One noticeable difference in the Scottish series is a greater subdivision of the main gazetteer (e.g. in
Argyll and Bute mainland Argyll has separate gazetteer from its islands, and Bute similarly is treated on its own). As with the English revisions, several of the volumes are the work of many contributors. As of 2006, the series is four volumes from completion.
Aberdeen and North-East Scotland (in preparation)
Argyll and Bute (2000) ISBN 0300096704 (Frank Arneil Walker)
Ayrshire and Arran (in preparation)
Borders (2006) ISBN 0300107021 (Kitty Cruft, John Dunbar and Richard Fawcett)
Dumfries and Galloway (1996) ISBN 0300096712 (John Gifford)
Dundee and Angus (in preparation)
Edinburgh (1984) ISBN 0200096720 (John Gifford,
Colin McWilliam and David Walker)
Fife (1988) ISBN 0300096739 (John Gifford)
Glasgow (1990) ISBN 0300096747 (Elizabeth Williamson, Anne Riches and Malcolm Higgs)
Highland and Islands (1992) ISBN 0300096259 (John Gifford)
Lothian, except Edinburgh (1978) ISBN 0300096267 (Colin McWilliam)
Perth and Kinross (2006) ISBN 0300109229 (John Gifford)
Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire (in preparation)
Stirling and Central Scotland (2002) ISBN 0300095945 (John Gifford and Frank Arneil Walker)
The series has also been extended to Wales.
Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion (2006) ISBN 0300101791 (Thomas Lloyd)
Clwyd (1986) ISBN 0300096275 (Edward Hubbard)
Glamorgan (1995) ISBN 0300096291 (John Newman)
Gwent/Monmouthshire (2000) ISBN 0300096305 (John Newman)
Gwynedd (research in progress)
Pembrokeshire (2004) ISBN 030001783 (Thomas Lloyd, Julian Orbach and Robert Scourfield)
Powys (1979) ISBN 0300096313 (Richard Haslam)
The Irish series is not so far advanced as the others. However the following have been published or are being prepared.
Dublin (2006) (Christine Casey)
North-West Ulster: the Counties of Londonderry, Donegal, Fermanagh & Tyrone (1979) ISBN 0-300-09667-4 (Alistair Rowan)
North Leinster (1993) ISBN 0-300-09668-2 (Alistair Rowan and Christine Casey)
The revision of the series has rendered some original volumes obsolete, usually as the area of coverage has expanded. To date the following volumes have been superseded:
London: the Cities of London and Westminster (1957)
London, except the Cities of London and Westminster (1952)
London Docklands (1998) (with Elizabeth Williamson)
Middlesex (1951)
South Lancashire (1969) ISBN 0140710361
In addition, two volumes,
North Devon and
South Devon were superseded by a single volume covering the entire county.
*
Survey of London - an even more detailed but incomplete account of the architecture of London.
*
Pevsner Architectural Guides*
The Victorian Society*
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–1983)*
Pevsner the German: text of lecture
