Trained as an architect, Edwin Smith had a special feeling for church architecture, and over a long period he photographed extensively all of England's cathedrals. The cathedral photographs, which include some of his finest works, have not previously been assembled in a single volume, and many of the 200 selected for this book have not been reproduced before. The arrangement is chronological rather than by cathedral, showing the development of cathedral design for over 900 years, and Olive Cook's text is not only a commentary on the features illustrated but an original and scholarly account of the historical background and the changing. liturgical rites bound up with this development. This is not a conventional guidebook but a celebration of some of the world's great architectural masterpieces, yielding many new and revealing glimpses of exquisite details and extraordinary architectural conceits.