[THE] AMBULATOR, OR, THE STRANGER'S COMPANION IN A TOUR ROUND LONDON, within the circuit of twenty-five miles: describing whatever is remarkable, either for elegance, grandeur, use, or curiosity; and comprehending catalogues of the pictures in the best collections: to which is prefixed, a concise description of London, Westminster, & Southwark, shewing their antiquity, remarkable buildings, extent, &c. &c. &c. With the addition of an entire new Map, coloured, of the country within the circuit described; and a table of watermen's fares: of use not only to strangers, but to the inhabitants of the metropolis. The third edition, improved and enlarged.

[AMBULATOR.]

Published by London: printed for J. Bew in Pater-Noster-Row, 1787

About this Item

12mo, pp. [ii], xxx, [31]-256, [6] additional material (see below); with a folding hand-coloured frontispiece map; cut rather close (like so many Easton Neston books), with loss of the first word of text and just shaving the foremargin of a few pages of text; else a very good copy, in contemporary tree calf, spine gilt, red morocco label. Third edition: first published in 1774 by John Bew, and reprinted in 1782: in the previous editions, the information is said to have been collected 'by a gentleman for his private amusement'. This is the first edition to contain a map, which makes a circle around London, with a radius of 25 miles, and thus very roughly equivalent to the area now enclosed by the M25 motorway. This is in fact a guide book to everywhere close to London including villages and towns which are now considered part of the city, such as Hammersmith or Greenwich but not London itself. However, at the very end there is what is in effect a map of the Royal Exchange, showing in which walks the various merchants 'are to be met with in 'Change Hours'. The descriptions of great houses are fascinating and quite detailed, with descriptions of paintings and furniture among them Chiswick House (pp. 55-61) and Wanstead House (pp. 227-30) and there are also long descriptions of places of public entertainment such as Vauxhall Gardens (pp. 211-24), which even include the prices of drinks and food on sale there (champagne for 10s.6d; a pat of butter for 2d). Provenance. Armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Hesketh, bt, and booklabel of the library at Easton Neston Hall, the great Hawksmoor house in Northamptonshire. The binder (or rebinder) of the books in this library put very attractive bindings, with nicely gilt spines, on the books, but he was much too enthusiastic in his use of the plough, and very many of them are too short or are cut close at foredge, as with this volume, where the first word of the title has been cropped away.

Seller Inventory # 28024

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [THE] AMBULATOR, OR, THE STRANGER'S COMPANION IN A TOUR ROUND LONDON, within the circuit of twenty-five miles: describing whatever is remarkable, either for elegance, grandeur, use, or curiosity; and comprehending catalogues of the pictures in the best collections: to which is prefixed, a concise description of London, Westminster, & Southwark, shewing their antiquity, remarkable buildings, extent, &c. &c. &c. With the addition of an entire new Map, coloured, of the country within the circuit ...
• Publisher: London: printed for J. Bew in Pater-Noster-Row
• Publication Date: 1787
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
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