The first book to focus on the urban development of Newport, Rhode Island, this is an extensively illustrated, multi-layered view of the city as both an urban entity and a cultural site of national significance.

This is a richly illustrated portrait of Newport, Rhode Island as a work of urban art, from colonial times to the present, both documented and celebrated in the maps, paintings, photographs, poetry and prose of renowned artists and writers. As one of the most historically intact cities in North America, Newport has a cultural and architectural heritage of national significance. Each of the city's districts has its own distinct character with street plans and buildings revealing the political, religious, commercial and artistic forces that have shaped Newport through the ages.

Stately Colonial squares and bustling wharves, picturesque Victorian villas and scenic drives, opulent Gilded Age palaces for the few and electric streetcars for the many, and preservation movements to honor the past and modernist schemes for a metropolis of the future all tell stories of urban beauty and controversy, of eras of lavish building, urban decay and extraordinary revival.