A Description of England. Part. I. Containing, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Essex. Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingtonshire, Surry, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire

European History, Economics and Business, Most Recent Listing; 16mo; London: Good+. 1722? . First Edition. 48, 3-49, [1], 3-46 pp pages; Title continues: "Worcestershire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire. In what diocese, circumference of miles, number of houses, air, soil, rivers, commodities, seats of the nobility, and gentlemen, &c. Likewise an account of, I. Market-towns, market-days, and their distance fron London. 2. Members of Parliament. 3 Fairs, fix'd, and moveable. 4. Coaches, carriers, and water-bound. 5. Roads from London to the chief towns, and cross-roads in each county. London : printed for James Hodges, at the Looking-Glass, on London-Bridge, " [1722? Date suggested from a note in ms. At the foot of the title page of the British Library copy]. 12mo. [143 x 82 mm -- vertical chain lines]. Contemporary sheepskin leather, plain double rules framing the covers in blind, no paste-down endpapers (apparently, this was the original state of the binding. There is no glue or staining to the exposed turn downs of the edges of the leather, the paste-boards, or the simple cords affixing the boards where they are exposed at the original piercing of the boards inner sides. The bookplate of a collector who died in 1922 is mounted directly to the inner surface of the exposed front board) . 48, 3-49, [1], 3-46 pp. Signatures: A-H4/ÃÂ ÃÂ A-H4/ÃÂ ÃÂ A-G4/ÃÂ [precisely identical to the British Library copy, as stated in ESTC]. The binding is worn, the outer hinges are cracked, there are small areas of leather lost at the spine ends and a chip missing along the plain spine -- there is a gouge missing near the center of the rear cover, two smaller areas of loss to the leather along the edge of that rear board, small loss at the corners. The text block shows minor staining where the (exposed) leather of the inner turn downs has come in contact with the edges of the first and last couple of leaves. No tears or significant paper flaws. A couple of corners are turned down at their tips (ca. 2 mm. ) . No pen marks, annotation or underlining throughout. Although this small book shows significant wear, it is integral and its original appearance and function remain intact. Calling this book "rare" is an understatement. In the reference literature we can find only a single copy located at the British Library. (We have a longer description which we will gladly send upon request) . Our volume seems to represent a form and manner of bookselling which was starting to ebb away -- the world of the booksellers who worked (and mostly, lived) on old London Bridge, offering chapbooks and their like -- [ballads, broadsides, newsbooks, novels and histories, romances, jest books, pious works and almanacs] -- cheaply made books at very low prices. One of the two names associated with this book belongs to Matthew Hotham. Like most of the London Bridge booksellers, he started out as an apprentice. As his master had done before him, he maintained a wider base of operations than his narrow stall on the stone London Bridge, since he fed chapbooks, horn books and similar inexpensive printed items to a number of roving salesmen, the so-called "chapmen" who wandered through England selling these cheap books at fairs and markets to people who were unlikely ever to have stepped over the threshhold of a book shop of any sort. ("chap" is derived from the Old English "ceap" meaning "barter, business, dealing" -- our modern word "cheap" comes from the same source) . For the most part, the chapmen worked on margin; when they managed to empty their box, they returned to London Bridge, paid for what they had sold and received another varied lot of consigned books. By the early 18th century when our book was produced, the cycle of trade with the roving chapmen was a couple of centuries old. The name in the imprint of our title page, James Hodges, had also been an apprentice on London Bridge -- but he was younger than Matthew Hotham, probably still in his.…