Copper engraving with original hand colour, published by John Cary for Cary's New Itinerary, 1821.

Image size: 6 1/4 x 8 3/8 inches, plus margins.

Excellent condition throughout, vertical fold as issued.

This small and attractive map of London as it was in the early nineteenth century presents a tantalising picture of a lost world. The Cities of London and Westminster, with Southwark on the Surry side, appear almost inconsequential amidst their rural surroundings, into which the recently laid-out Regent's Park appears as a green balloon floating into the surrounding countryside to the north west. To the south east, Wricklemarsh House has been disparked. During the intervening two centuries most of the terrain shown here has been devoured by Greater London and lost to the voracious gluttony of its urban sprawl.

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