Original Views of London As It Is.

Thomas Shotter Boys (1803-1874) learnt the art of lithography in Paris, at the same time as Prout and Bonnington. Boys' lithographs provide the definitive record of London in the 1840's, as well as being one of the last great illustrated books on London, to compare with Malton's Picturesque Tour and Ackermann's Microcosm.

'A book of considerable importance; apart from the beauty of its plates, it records London at a period when good pictorial records were few.' (Abbey). Tooley calls this 'the finest of lithograph books on London'.

One of the amusements of the work is the way that Boys insinuates himself into some of the plates: as an inscription on the base of the statue in plate 20, with his address on the carriage in plate 21, on a sandwich board in plate 18 with an exhortation to vote for him, and as an initialled baker's basket in plate 22. In plate 3 he includes a self-portrait in tailcoat and top-hat, complete with sketching book and folding stool, while next to him, a pun on his name, are two inseparable fat boys who were surely Tenniel's inspiration for Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

First edition; folio (54 x 39 cm); additional lithograph title-page as frontispiece, 25 lithograph plates, lithograph dedication leaf, text leaves in French and English; contemporary full red morocco, elaborate gilt borders and gilt title motif to boards, gilt rolled board edges and elaborate turn ins, spine in six gilt compartments, all edges gilt, a fine copy.

Adams 196; Abbey (Scenery), 240; Tooley 104; Ray 87.