The Microcosm of London; or, London in miniature.

with letter from Augustus Welby Pugin

This is a splendid work, with the preferred pre-publication watermarks, exhibiting a depth and richness of colouring. The Microcosm offers an incomparable panorama of Regency London both high and low, from sedate drawing rooms to the brawling and boozing street life of the metropolis, captured in matchless hand-coloured aquatint by the inspired pairing of Pugin and Rowlandson. Most of the plates are in their first or second state, with plate 12 and 39 in the rare first state.

With an autograph letter by Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852), pioneer of the Gothic Revival architecture movement, to, probably, Thomas Talbot Bury (1809-1877), his long time friend and collaborator, dated 1839. The letter describes a drawing Pugin made of Macclesfield Church (St Michael and All Angels), including directions to Bury for his engraving of the image, and is adorned with small sketches of the altar candles and statues. It was Augustus Welby's father, Augustus Charles, who produced the architectural drawings of this work and was the reason Augustus Welby and Bury were so intimate, having apprenticed his son and Bury together.

'Ackermann's The Microcosm of London... is a book of major importance. The architectural drawings were by Augustus Charles Pugin, a French refugee who came to London in about 1798, "driven from his country either by the horrors of the French Revolution or by private reasons connected with a duel" [...] His lasting fame rests on his consummate ability as an architectural draughtsman. By a stroke of genius Ackermann engaged Thomas Rowlandson to add human figures to the drawings that Pugin made for The Microcosm, so that the stately, accurate and dignified qualities of that artist are enlivened by the vitality and charm of Regency life as depicted by one of the most vigorous draughtsmen of all time. To turn the leaves of The Microcosm is to take a walk though London at a singularly fortunate moment, observing, as we never can in real life, the scenes of many celebrated incidents in English literature and history: the India House of Charles Lamb, the King's Bench Prison of Dickens, the Foundling Hospital of Captain Coram and Hogarth, the Guildhall bombed by the Luftwaffe, the Newgate of Harrison Ainsworth, the Carlton House of the Prince Regent and so forth.' (Thomas, Great Books and Book Collectors, 1975, p. 155)

First edition, early issue, with ALS loosely tipped to first blank; 3 vols, large 4to (34 x 28 cm); letter from Augustus Welby Pugin to T. Bury dated 1839, restored and laid on linen, wood-engraved titles, engraved dedications, 104 hand-coloured aquatint plates by Bluck, Stadler and others after Pugin and Rowlandson, watermarks 1806-1808, bookplate to pastedown; twentieth-century half crushed morocco by Zaehnsdorf, gilt ruled cloth boards, spine lettered in gilt in six gilt compartments, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, a fine set.

Abbey Scenery 212; Tooley 7; Prideaux pp121-4. Franklin 49-54.