[Rarebooks] fa: MAITLAND'S HISTORY OF LONDON - 1st Ed. 1739 - Folding Maps, Engravings

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed this week, along with several other 18th & 19th-century  
illustrated books, auctions ending Sunday, Jan. 17. Details and images  
can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name  
arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

Happy New Year,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A., CA USA

William Maitland: The History of London, from its Foundation by the  
Romans, to the Present Time. Containing A Faithful Relation of the  
Publick Transactions of the Citizens; Accounts of the several  
Parishes; Parallels between London and other Great Cities; its  
Governments, Civil, Ecclesiastical and Military; Commerce, State of  
Learning, Charitable Foundations, &c. With the several Accounts of  
Westminster, Middlesex, Southwark, And Other Parts within The Bill of  
Mortality. In Nine Books. The Whole Illustrated with a Variety of Fine  
Cuts. With a Compleat Index. London: Printed by Samuel Richardson, in  
Salisbury-Court near Fleetstreet, MDCCXXXIX [1739]. FIRST EDITION.  
Tall folio (41 x 26 cm; 16.25 x 10.25 in) in full period calf, gilt- 
stamped morocco spine label; viii + [8] + 800 + [14] pp.; with  
numerous tables, in-text illustrations and plates, some folding. ESTC  
T100091.

The first edition of the first important history and survey of London  
to follow Stow's great Survey of London (1598). Complete, with 25  
engraved plates, four of which are folding, including the large birds- 
eye "View of London about the Year 1560," and numerous engraved  
vignettes and in-text cuts (including many coats of arms of guilds,  
the East India Company, South Sea Company, etc.). A monumental work,  
significant for its account of London's history, but even more so for  
its panoramic survey of the city, its suburbs and inhabitants at the  
time of publication. An idea of its vast scope can be gleaned from the  
astonishing diversity of subscribers from every level of society to be  
found in the 7-page subscription list, wherein Queen Caroline and  
Frederick Prince of Wales rub shoulders with the London Assurance  
Office, the worshipful Company of Fishmongers, Thomas Lawrence,  
Tobacconist, and Mr. Samuel Savage, Callicoe-printer. Also to be found  
are such notables as the Earl of Chesterfield; playwright Colley  
Cibber; poet Richard Glover; rival political pamphleteers John Lord  
Hervey and William Pulteney; prime minister Sir Robert Walpole; George  
Dance, Architect; Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society; and  
Stephen Austen, Bookseller (Jane's great-uncle). Samuel Richardson,  
the novelist and publisher (and printer of this work), is down for 5  
copies.

The plates include maps of London before and after the Great Fire of  
1666, St. Peter's and other churches, Bridewell Hospital (later  
Bridewell Prison), Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), Greenwich Hospital  
with the observatory in the background, the Tower of London from the  
Thames, Mansion House, the Royal Exchange, etc., etc...

Loosely laid in is a separate but related item: An Account of the  
Number of Persons Dying at the several Ages undermentioned for Ten  
Years past; as Publish'd by the Company of Parish Clerks, in the  
Yearly Bills of Mortality, published in 1738. One folio sheet (40.5 x  
26 cm), it features a number of demographic tables, including "A table  
shewing the probabilities of life by observations made from the bills  
of mortality in London," by John Smart. Wear and imprint of paper clip  
to left edge, closed tear to right edge, short tear at top fold.