DUNRAVEN, Earl of. Notes on Irish Architecture. By Edwin, Third Earl of Dunraven. Edited by Margaret Stokes.

Two volumes. Illustrated with 164 plates, 160 engravings on wood and 19 lithographic plates. London: George Bell, 1877. Imperial folio. Recent full natural calf with detail of original Celtic revival gilt cloth binding, bound in at end. Occasional light foxing. A very nice copy of an exceedingly rare item.

Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham Quin, third Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl was born in London, 1812. He graduated B.A. Trinity College, Dublin, 1833, and as Viscount Adair represented Glamorgan as a Conservative 1837-1851. While in the Commons he converted to Catholicism and concentrated his political activity on safeguarding religious education in Ireland. He subsequently became one of the Commissioners of Education in Ireland and succeeded his father as third earl in 1850. Dunraven was interested in intellectual pursuits, he studied astronomy and spiritualism, but Irish history and archaeology was his main interest. A founder member along with Petrie, O’Donovan and Stokes of the Irish Archaeological Society in 1840 and the Celtic Society in 1845. He is said to have visited every barony in Ireland and every island off the coast, nearly always attended by a photographer. The chief results of his labours, which were designed as a continuation of those of Petrie, were embodied in the present work. He was a man of quick perceptions and great power of application, a zealous convert to Catholicism, and a highly popular landlord.