Ancient Topography of London [bound with] Vagabondiana by John Thomas Smith - 1815/1817: Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers

First editions of Ancient Topography of London Containing Not Only Views of Buildings, Which in Many instances No Longer Exist, and For the Most Part Were Never Before Published, but Some Account of the Places and Customs Either Unknown, or Overlooked by the London Historians and Vagabondiana, or Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers throught the Streets of London bound together in one volume.

Ancient Topography of London, published at 4 Chandos Street, Covent Garden, London, 1815.

Complete with 33 fine etchings by Smith from his own drawings, of buildings and interiors around London, plus frontispiece with hand-coloured heraldic devices of London guilds.

Begun October 24 1810 (date of hand-coloured frontispiece) and completed in 1815 (date of title page). It was originally intended as "an additional accompaniment to Thomas Pennant's Some Account of London." Now valued for its detailed architectural drawings of Norman, medieval and Tudor buildings, many of which were already ruins or to be demolished in the 19th century. Several of the architectural plates are populated with tradespeople, manual workers and famous London beggars.

The buildings include sacred and secular architecture, both interior and exterior. Plates show the entrance and walls of the vestibule of the 11th century Temple Church, ruined walls of the Convent of St. Clare or Minoresses, founded in 1293, the exterior of Bethlem or Bedlam Hospital and London Wall, interior of the London prison Poultry Compter in Cheapside, a teetering Tudor house in Sweedon's Passage, a wood-paneled apartment in a magnificent Tudor mansion standing on Hart Street, Crutched Friars, Tudor timber houses on Duck Lane, Smithfield, with malignant beggar woman Anne Siggs, a wood-paneled room with ornate plaster ceiling in Sir Paul Pindar's House, Bishopsgate Street, porch of General Monk's house in Hanover Court, etc.

Vagabondiana, or Anecdotes of Mendicant Wanderers throught the Streets of London, scarce first edition in book form from 1817, originally published as a portfolio of prints Etchings of Remarkable Beggars, plates dated 1815/1816.

With half-title, engraved frontispiece portrait of Saint Martin, patron saint of beggars and vagabonds, letterpress title in red and black within diamond ruled lozenge, 32 etched plates, several in-text illustrations, Grangerized with 2 extra plates bound in.

Each etching is accompanied by a profile of the individual, often giving their name, history and haunts in the capital. Includes the famous plates of Black characters Joseph Johnson, a wounded merchant seaman who wore a tall ship hat and sang, and one-eyed Charles McGee, who begged at the Obelisk at the foot of Ludgate Hill. Other characters include Blind Priscilla, the patchwork quilt-making beggar of St James, Clerkenwell; blind Charles Wood with his dog dancing to organ music; a blind penny-tract seller, one-legged beggar Lilly who worked Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey; Daniel Cropp, a filthy street-crossing sweeper on Charles Street and Rathbone Place; May Day street-performer and clown; street grubbers Bill Row and John Taylor; an old disabled Jewish mendicant pulled around Petticoat Lane in a cart, and many more.

Half leather binding with spine repaired with buckram, original burgundy leather gilt spine reapplied, leather corners frayed and torn, marbled boards scuffed and stained, armorial bookplate of Barrow Hill on front endpaper, ink inscriptions opposite title page to Topography and preface to Vagabondiana, good impressions of the plates, but some scattered spotting and toning throughout, water staining to top right corner of pages 29-52 in Vagabondiana outside the plate mark, some notes in pencil to text and plates in Topography.