RARE. Thomas Dugdale was an antiquarian and responsible for this the ‘Curiosities of Great Britain’. The work was issued with two distinct sets of maps. The first utilised those maps from the George Cole and John Roper ‘British Atlas’ of 1810. The second series used a new set of maps engraved by Joshua Archer (1792-1863) which were derived from those of Cole and Roper. The publishers J. & F. Tallis had acquired the Cole and Roper plates and the Dugdale text by c.1835. They continued to issue the text with the maps and then offered this new series of plates concurrently.

The firm of Tallis then published this ‘Topographical Dictionary’ edited by Edward Litt Laman (E. L.) Blanchard (1820-89). Blanchard came from the theatre and was at one point responsible for the annual pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He began work on the ‘Dictionary’ in 1852 and was paid on average £2-3 per part. The final 43rd part was supplied in December 1859. The finished work is published by Lucinda Tallis (1792-1869), widow of John Tallis who died in 1842. The ‘Topographical Dictionary’ was presumably not very successful as it is extremely rare. The only known examples are at Cambridge University Library and three in private English collections, this possibly being one of them. Provenance: Inscription of ‘Eileen Disney-Simons from her mother’ inside upper board; bookplate of C. W. Simons; private English collection. Beresiner (1983) pp. 46-7; Carroll (1996) 112; Smith, D. (1985) pp. 123-4; Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).