1810-1824.]. 12mo, pp. [iv] including wood engraved frontispiece and title-page, [5] - 35, [3] blank; text including 7 full page wood engravings, with two small tail-pieces; clean and bright; stitched as issued in the original blue semi-stiff wrappers, with mounted etched engravings to both covers, spine and covers a little rubbed, else a very good copy. An appealing introduction to London for young readers, one of a number of small popular guide-books to the city produced by the publisher Thomas Tegg. Tegg (1776-1845) set up shop in 1805 at 111 Cheapside, where he quickly established a publisher’s list of best-selling sixpenny abridgements of popular works, song-books as well as dealing in publishers’ remainders. He is particularly noted for his ‘New Picture of London’ (1803, reissued in 1814), and had previously published ‘The curiosities of London: containing a descriptive and entertaining sketch of the British Metropolis’ (ca. 1810) also bound in blue card wrappers with mounted engravings on each cover. He became a highly respected figure in the City, and issued some 4000 publications during his lifetime.
The attractive engravings depict: The Tower of London (front cover), St Paul’s (rear cover), The Royal Exchange and Bank, Newgate, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Somerset House, Carlton House, The Horse Guards & Admiralty, House of Lords, Foundling Hospital