The Microcosm of London by T. Rowlandson & A. C. Pugin

The Microcosm of London

by T. Rowlandson & A. C. Pugin

Text by John Summerson

(A King Penguin)

Penguin Books, 1943, [First Edition], illustrated coloured paintings plates, black and white illustrated frontispiece, hardcover with illustrative boards

Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, coffee ring on front cover, missing spine, text block and covers tight (see photographs)

“'The Microcosm of London' began to appear in the spring of 1808. It was published by Rudolph Ackermann at his shop in the Strand, and was eventually completed in 24 parts, comprising one hundred coloured views of London scenes and two hundred pages of conversational text.
The two illustrators that he chose for his work were Thomas Rowlandson and Charles Augustus Pugin. The latter drew the architecture in the plates whilst the former added the figures.
The present book is simply a selection of 16 of the original 100 plates, reduced in dimensions by about one-half. They have been chosen for a variety of reasons: some for their architectural beauty, some for the interest of the figures, some because the scene they represent is so curiously like the same scene today [1943], some because it is so curiously different.
In these pictures we see English people who lived their lives against a background of world war, of sweeping armies and mass fanaticism.”