The English-born architect Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) moved to America in 1850 and within 20 years won a reputation as one of America s greatest landscape architects. He was co-designer (with Frederick Law Olmstead and others) of a number of New York City s principal parks (Central Park Morningside and Riverside Parks Prospect Park in Brooklyn) South Park in Chicago and the Metropolitan and Natural History Museums in New York City. Vaux was a major influence in the development of a national architecture in America. Villas and Cottages published in 1857 was his only book. It forms a record of his early work in the field of domestic architecture. It contains 39 designs for well-styled efficient and low-priced houses - rural and suburban cottages villas and town houses built in the Hudson River Valley during the 1850s. Each design is supplemented with detailed floor plans perspective views a lively commentary and vignettes illustrating various details; front and side elevations are included in many cases.