SOME ACCOUNT OF LONDON 1805 THOMAS PENNANT, EXTRA ILUSTRATED, RIVIERE BINDING

SOME ACCOUNT OF LONDON 1805 THOMAS PENNANT, EXTRA ILUSTRATED, RIVIERE BINDING

£3,500.00

Tax included.

[PENNANT, THOMAS]. Some Account of London. London: Printed for Robert Faulder, 1805.

Fourth edition - extra illustrated. Leather-bound in two volumes; Hardcovers; Quartos (31cm x 24cm); pp. [6],186; [2], 187-415, [8] index. English text. Stunningly bound in full red polished calf gilt by Riviere; t.e.g., other edges uneven; marbled endpapers; extra-illustrated by the insertion of 361 fine engraved (mostly eighteenth century) views and portraits; plus, 6 maps and plans of London (some folding); printed side-notes and foot-notes; appendices and indexes. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure with the joints and hinges perfectly intact. Covers very well-preserved with trivial shelf wear. Contents largely fresh and clean with some light foxing mostly to prelims. Without previous ownership markings. Exquisite and scarce thus.

Notes: Thomas Pennant s "London" quickly became one of the most popular and oft-cited works of its time, and has remained an enduring classic. Pennant's 'Of London' was initially issued in 1790 and became 'Some account of London. Pennant (1726-1798) was a Welsh naturalist, traveller, writer and antiquarian. Being Welsh, had an outsider's eye in his writing, but travelled often enough to London to have acquired first-hand knowledge, and his account of the city is written with his characteristic dry wit. He was born and lived his whole life at his family estate, Downing Hall near Whitford, Flintshire. An authority no less than Samuel Johnson once said of Pennant, in a moment of rare unmitigated praise: " he's the best traveller I ever read; he observes more things than anyone else does." And in 1777, Johnson said to Boswell "Our ramble in the islands hangs upon my imagination. I can hardly help imagining that we shall go again. Pennant seems to have seen a great deal which we did not see. When we travel again let us look better about us."