A RARE WORK. Edward Mogg (fl.1804-47) began his career around 1804 with the publication of a plan of London and Westminster. Indeed, much of his life was spent publishing road books and maps relating to the streets of London. He began this production with a plan to cover all the roads of England and Wales. He declared that it ‘will be divided into three parts for the purpose of rendering it more portable … The First Part, comprising the Southern Division, will be completed in Fourteen Numbers …’ Begun in 1814 the first part was completed by 1817. The first part was to include and expand on his earlier work entitled ‘A Survey of the Roads from London to Brighton’, 1808. However, the first part was all that was ever published.

The typographic title page identifies the counties covered; ‘Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall; with part of Buckingham and Middlesex.’ The road strips afford detail of the surroundings with all country houses noted and their owners named. The general map is dated 1 May 1817 and can be found bound at the end of the book and is therefore quite likely the last addition. It may be that this copy is indeed one of the first to be issued. Indeed, we know this to have happened to his earlier work entitled ‘A Survey of the Roads from London to Brighton’, 1808. It was sold in an unfinished state, prior to publication, at a discounted rate. ‘This ambitious book, on a larger scale than before, is much the most attractive of the English road books’ (Wardington Catalogue). Provenance: private English collection. Bennett (1996) pp. 110-12; Fordham (1924) p. 54; Kingsley (1982) p. 373; Smith (1982) pp. 170-1; Smith (1985) pp. 84-5; Tooley’s Dictionary (1999-2004); Worms & Baynton-Williams (2011).