THE NEW LONDON SPY; or, a complete and modern twenty-four hours ramble through the Bills of Mortality. Containing an universal disclosure of the secret, nocturnal and diurnal transactions in and about the cities of London and Westminster, and the borough of Southwark. Including a full and entertaining view of the various scenes at this time to be met with in the Metropolis, and it's environs. Together with an interesting and humourous description of all the present places of daily and nightly resort; with the characters (impartially and strikingly drawn) of many well-known persons who are now frequenters at Gaming-Houses, Bagnios, and other nunneries, Night-houses, Jelly-houses, Taverns [etc]. Written by Richard King, Esq. author of The New

KING, Richard, pseudonym.

Edité par London: printed for Alex. Hogg at the King's Arms no. 16 Pater-noster-Row. Price only eighteen-pence with an humourous frontispiece. ?, 1781

A propos de cet article

12mo in sixes (173 x 100mm), engraved frontispiece and pp. viii, [13]-124 (last page misnumbered '224'); with a twelve-page advertisement catalogue for Hogg's publications at the end; bound last in a volume after three other contemporary works (see below); a little browned on frontispiece and title page, and with the margins of one or two pages a bit soiled; else a good copy in contemporary English sheep, a little rubbed, neatly rebacked. A very rare early edition of this guide to the night-life of London in the early years of George III's reign. The text, with variants and alterations, appeared in various forms in the 1770s and 1780s: the first under this title was published by J. Cooke, possibly in 1771, and another edition 'as it appears in the year 1772' following the next year. This appears to be the third edition (also issued under a different title - see below), but such is the rarity of these books that other editions may have disappeared altogether. There were two later editions, both severely abridged, in about 1800, but these may be the only ones before 1801. The structure of the book is arranged in chapters or scenes as the tour of London progresses, but it begins like a traditional novel. The narrator (presumably 'Richard King') says that he was born in London but brought up in Bristol; eager to discover more about his native city, he travelled to London in November 1780 on the Bristol stage-coach. Finding that the relations he expected to meet had in fact died, he falls in with one Mr Ambler, who shows him the metropolis by day and night. By p. 27 the geographical nature of the book is apparent: short chapters (some very brief) deal with various places and buildings of the city - Green Park, Horseguards, Admirality, Adelphi Buildings, Blackfriars Bridge. Soon we are descending into the lower depths: Fleet-Prison and Newgate (pp. 36-7), Wood-Street Compter (pp. 37-43) and Rosemary-Lane, also known as Rag-Fair (pp. 51-58), where he sees 'several sea-faring persons, who were more busily employed in traficking for women's flesh, than in buying clothes'. At Goodman's Fields (pp. 58-63) they meet with a young woman who invites them to come upstairs and 'drink a dish of tea with her and her friend': they hear her story and that of her friend, and how they came to be in the care of 'Mrs. B---, the abbess of our nunnery, as we sometimes call it'. It is now late at night. The ramblers then visit the theatre in Covent Garden (pp. 71-6), where they catch the last act of a tragedy, and the comic after-piece; then to a 'Jelly-House', a common night-house, and on to a Bagnio, where a duel is narrowly avoided - this scene is illustrated in th|e frontispiece. Moving on to Westminster and Pimlico, they admire the Abbey and Westminster Hall, but soon come across more human distress in the form of a woman who is being beaten and stripped, whom they rescue and who tells them her story (pp. 93-100). Walking towards Chelsea, they narrowly escape robbery by footpads, and, it being between four and five in the morning, they go onto a public house for 'countrymen and carriers', where the narrator falls for a beautiful country girl (p. 110). Their next visit is to a 'Spouting Club', where amateur actors train themselves for the stage: again, they get into conversation with a woman who has fallen on hard times and hear her story. The author rounds off his account of 24 hours in London by returning to the coffee-house in Green Park where he began, and a resolve to tell the story of his adventures. This edition is found in two issues, both of them very rare. The present issue, with the title The New London Spy, is listed by ESTC in just two copies - at Senate House Library and California State University at Long Beach. There is another issue with a different title page, beginning The Complete Modern London Spy for the present year 1781, which was also issued by Alex Hogg (six copies known to ESTC): the two are virtually identical except for h.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: THE NEW LONDON SPY; or, a complete and modern twenty-four hours ramble through the Bills of Mortality. Containing an universal disclosure of the secret, nocturnal and diurnal transactions in and about the cities of London and Westminster, and the borough of Southwark. Including a full and entertaining view of the various scenes at this time to be met with in the Metropolis, and it's environs. Together with an interesting and humourous description of all the present places of daily and nightly ...
• Éditeur: London: printed for Alex. Hogg at the King's Arms no. 16 Pater-noster-Row. Price only eighteen-pence with an humourous frontispiece. ?
• Date de parution: 1781
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Fiction