18 AUGUST 2007, Page 16

Pugin's other biographer

Sir: James Joll writes in his review of God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain (Books, 11 August) that Pugin has 'hitherto lacked a considered full-length biography'. I am surprised that he makes no reference to Michael Trappes-Lomax's Pugin: a Mediaeval Victorian — a 1932 work that was written with the 'active co-operation' of Pugin's grandson, Sebastian Pugin Powell.

Michael Trappes-Lomax told Anthony Symondson that he could not find a book about Pugin, apart from Fen-ey's 1861 biography, so he decided to write one himself. His interest had been inspired by a Jesuit teacher at Stonyhurst, Father Philip Watts, a greatgrandson of Pugin.

John Christopher Lynch Tokyo, Japan