John Rutter's Delineations of Fonthill Abbey(1823) remains the most successful of all the Fonthill guidebooks. It is artistically superior to its only real competitor, John Britton's Graphical and Literary Illustrations of Fonthill (1823), and is now a scarce item in any condition. The decision to include Rutter in Beckfordiana's web facsimiles has not been an easy one since anyone would be loath to subject the fragile folio to the harsh reality of a scanner: here, a badly beat up small paper copy is presented as a skeletal reminder of the larger version's beauty. The text is complete, and all plates are present (though presented separately for reasons of ease of web accommodation); some of the plates have been badly cropped with some loss to the face of the engraved surfaces (the fold-out map of the Fonthill domain, which in the large paper copies was hand tinted, is still in the process of being added to the facsimile. As it is very large, this plate represents a problem in size).

It is the hope of the keeper of this website that the visitor should treat this online edition of Rutter as no more than a working copy: a crude study aid for the want of a better.

Please use the index below to continue to the facsimile edition. Be aware that these pages are very large; a slow modem connection to the Internet is not recommended.

You may also wish to consult the other Fonthill guidebooks in the Beckfordiana website, also accessible here.