1839 CRIES OF LONDON, EXTENSIVELY EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED

SMITH, John Thomas Smith. The Cries of London. BOUND WITH: TUER, Andrew W. London Cries: with Six Charming Children. London: John Bowyer Nichols and Son / Field & Tuer, 1839, [1883]. Large quarto, late nineteenth-century three-quarter green morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled boards and endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut. $6800.

First edition of this collection of this work on the street cries of London, extensively extra-illustrated (some of which are hand-colored) for a total of 114 plates. Bound together with London Cries, which is also extra-illustrated, with a total of 43 plates and almost 40 in-text illustrations, some of each of which are hand-colored.

Although recorded as early as the medieval period, the 18th and 19th centuries saw the rapid expansion of the custom of London street hawkers using distinctive, lyrical calls to sell their wares; they were the object of much fascination for poets, musicians and writers throughout the period. John Thomas Smith, the author of Cries of London, was Keeper of the Prints Department at the British Museum and a determined student of London street life; other works of his include The Streets of London and Vagabondiana, or Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers through the Streets of London. This copy has been bound with an additional title page indicating that it was extra-illustrated in 1885 by H.N. Pym, with his bookplate. Pym privately printed a guide for guests at his own house called Odds and Ends at Foxwold (1887) which describes this copy: "Bound by Tout, and extra-illustrated by the addition of 135 fine portraits and prints, including a set of Caracci's 'Cries of Bologna'; Craig's 'Cries of London,' hand-coloured; rare prints by Hogarth and Cruikshank; original drawings by Rowlandson and Pugin. Amongst the portraits are proofs of, —J.T. Smith, Rowlandson, Nelson, John Nichols, Jackson, R.A., James I., Ben Jonson, Herrick, Bewick, Gillray, Storace, Woolderidge, Hollar, Queen Charlotte, Grisi, Bartolozzi, Shelley, Blake, Shiavonetti, Prince Consort, Cipriani, &c."

Fine condition.