Column

This book is 847 pages long. It covers the column from its first documented appearance in Egyptian architecture through its current use as a decorative element in suburban home design, which R. Staircase discusses in the final chapter under the heading 'The Long Descent.'

Staircase spent twenty-two years on this project. He is aware that this is a long time to spend on a column. His position is that the column is also a long time, and that the two facts are related.

The book contains 412 photographs, 87 technical drawings, and one poem, in the appendix, that Staircase wrote and has refused to discuss in interviews. The poem is about a column in Athens. It is not, technically, about the column.

Harold keeps three copies. One for the shelf, one for lending, and one that he considers not to be for lending but has lent twice.