Following in the footsteps of his father, George Petrie (1790–1866) devoted his early life to art. However, as he toured Ireland and painted historic monuments, his interest in his country's antiquities began to grow, and his research into the origin and uses of Irish round towers would help cement his reputation as a founding father of Irish archaeology. This second edition of his major work appeared in 1845, the same year as the first. It expands on his earlier essay on the same topic, which had won him a gold medal from the Royal Irish Academy in 1833. Petrie's illustrated study refuted the various contemporary theories about the round towers and put forward evidence-based arguments which later archaeologists have refined but broadly accepted. The Life and Labours in Art and Archaeology of George Petrie (1868), written by his friend William Stokes, is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.