For many years Victorian and modern figure brasses received scant and often sceptical attention but since the 1970s David Meara especially has advanced the study and appreciation of such memorials. His first book on the subject of Victorian Memorial Brasses (1983) covered a longer period than the present work, but in less detail and with different illustrations and emphasis.

It is now generally accepted that the revived use of memorial figure brasses was largely spearheaded in the 1840s by the partnership between the architect A W N Pugin and the firm of John Hardman of Birmingham. This business partnership is covered briefly here, but in great detail in Meara's second book, A W N Pugin and the Revival of Memorial Brasses (1991). There were, of course, many influences connected with the increase in use of such brasses, ritualistic, artistic and commercial, as well as the rise of Tractarianism, antiquarianism, the Gothic Revival and the growth of such groups as the Cambridge Camden Society (later the Ecclesiological Society). These, and other factors, are broadly discussed in the earlier chapters of the book.

It should be emphasized here that not all of the revived figure and inscriptional brasses adhered to the medieval style so favoured by Pugin, though even he was not averse to adapting contemporary dress, so long as it was done tastefully. Despite early interest, by the end of the nineteenth century a gradual decline in use had taken place. Any ‘renaissance’ was, Meara suggests, heavily influenced by William Morris, ‘who almost certainly designed brasses’, and the Arts and Crafts movement. However, several well-known architects of the period, such as Comper, Bodley, Woodyer and Temple Moore, plus commercial firms such as Barkentin & Krall, Hardman and Messrs Gawthorp, continued to design or engrave occasional figure and cross brasses in the Gothic tradition up to the early 1920s. Some striking examples of their designs appear at intervals throughout the book.

With a number of notable exceptions, there were few engraved figure brasses produced after the First World War, many firms choosing to concentrate on war memorials and inscriptional work. Between the two World Wars, a number of national organizations were established that tried to encourage a high standard of lettering, engraving and design, notably Sculptured Memorials and Headstones (founded 1934), which numbered among its artists Sir Edwin Lutyens, Eric Gill and Julian Allan. A design for a figure brass by Gill can be seen on the dust jacket and as a frontispiece to the book. In addition, a few small commercial firms, for example, George T Friend of Holborn and F Osborne & Co of London, whose figure brasses were mostly to ‘priests of the Anglo-Catholic tradition’, were producing a regular mix of inscriptional work and occasional figure brasses up to the 1970s.

One of the strengths of this book comes out of the meetings and correspondence Meara has had with designers and engravers of figure brasses, by which it has been possible to show how a design was conceived and then engraved. Those visited include the late Francis C Cooper (d 1980), Julian Phelps Allan (d 1996), Christopher Ironside (d 1992) and William Turner of G T Friend. Illustrations of their work and that of others can be found throughout the second half of the book, and in the select county-by-county lists of nineteenth- and twentieth-century brasses in Appendix C (pp 256–85). Just as in earlier centuries, it becomes evident that even up to the present day the designer of a brass was not always the same person who engraved the finished product. While some took their inspiration from medieval brasses (see especially Appendices A and B), others used sketches and photographs, and even actual clothes worn by those commemorated, to present a realistic representation.

This book is well researched, written, documented and produced, and has brought under one cover information and illustrations (three in colour) from many sources. The author should have avoided using a mix of imperial and metric measurements, and in the layout of some of the pages the text, captions and footnotes can be confusingly close. Whatever one's views on late Victorian and modern brasses, this book should be read and used to encourage a wider appreciation of its subject, and viewed not in isolation, but as an adjunct to other forms of memorial art and craft.