Contrasts; or a Parallel Betweeen the Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries and sirnilar buildings of the Present Day; Shewing the Present Decay of Taste: Accompanied hy Appropriate Text. Salisbury: for the Author, 1836.

The publication of this first edition of Contrasts brought Pugin fame and notoriety. He could not find a publisher to take it on, and so published it at his own expense. Through his illustrations and text he satirised current architecture in which neo-classicism had sunk to an uninspired level; moreover, he perhaps rightly pointed out that pagan architecture was unsuitable for Christian purposes, as in church building. [Elzea, Pre-Raphaelite Era, p. 18.]

Pugin, A. Welby. The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England. "Republished from the Dublin Review." London: Charles Dolman, 1843.


Last modified 22 November 2004