Westminster Abbey: A thousand years of national pageantry (Wonders of the World) [Paperback]

'A splendid book on a splendid subject- the quintessential English church.' --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Sunday Telegraph - Westminster Abbey is the third title in Profile's Wonders of the World series, which 'promises to be an outstanding series on the world's great monuments.' The Independent - 'A masterly addition to Profile's admirable 'Wonders of the World' series. His elegant account is embellished with a host of human details.'

'National cathedral', coronation church, royal mausoleum, museum of sculpture, burial place of poets, resting place of the great and of the Unknown Warrior, and recent backdrop to the spectacular funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales - this rich and extraordinary building unites many functions. In terms of those functions, the Abbey is the most complex church in existence - perhaps the most complex of all buildings. It has been abbey, pilgrimage church, cathedral; and it is now a collegiate church and royal peculiar. The foundation document of modern Presbyterianism was written within its walls; and its chapter for centuries served as a house of parliament. In a highly original book classicist and cultural historian Richard Jenkyns shows us how to look at this microcosm of history with new eyes. The Wonders of the World is a series of books that focuses on some of the world's most famous sites or monuments. Their names will be familiar to almost everyone: they have achieved iconic stature and are loaded with a fair amount of mythological baggage. These monuments have been the subject of many books over the centuries, but our aim, through the skill and stature of the writers, is to get something much more enlightening, stimulating, even controversial, than straightforward histories or guides.

This book is both an appreciation of an architectural masterpiece and an explorayion of the building's shifting meanings. In a highly original book, classicist and cultural historian Richard Jenkyns teaches us to look at this microcosm of history with new eyes. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Richard Jenkyns is Professor of the Classical Tradition, University of Oxford, a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall and author of a number of books including Dignity and Decadence: Some Classical Aspects of Victorian Art and Architecture and The Victorians and Ancient Greece.