This architectural history of Edinburgh amalgamates the city's three main characteristics - a dramatic natural setting, an old town which evolved over several centuries and the Georgian new town which was conceived and built between 1766 and 1840. The book begins with the original proposals to build the New Town and ends a hundred years later with the death of William Playfair in the year of the completion of the National Gallery. It features period photographs of the city in the '50s by the late Sir Edwin Smith.