Kelsall (Charles) Phantasm of an University: with Prolegomena, first edition, half-title, engraved frontispiece, 4 portraits on 2 leaves, aquatint view of site of Cicero's villa at Arpinum, 2 maps, large folding plan and 14 large folding plates, a few engraved illustrations in text, some light foxing or offsetting to plates, contemporary calf with border tooled in blind and inner panel ruled & tooled in gilt, very slightly rubbed, small stain to upper cover and scuff to lower, rebacked in calf, black morocco label, [BAL 1649, lacking one plate), 4to, 1814.

⁂ Handsome copy of a rare work, a proposal and design for an ideal university by the intellectual and amateur architect Charles Kelsall (1782-1857). A classical scholar, Kelsall bases most of his arguments concerning education on Greek and Roman examples, and intends the buildings of his university to be predominantly in the then fashionable Doric style, although some faculty buildings are Roman-inspired, and some Saxon and Norman. The university complex was to comprise a core of faculty buildings with colonnade, fountains, a large botanic garden with observatory and menagerie, a university church, and statues of philosophers and educative friezes, all derived from great antique buildings. Kelsall estimates that the building costs would run to £5,000,000 and, not surprisingly, it was never built.
Although there are copies in several libraries very few have appeared at auction and there were very likely only a few copies printed.