Town Plans

20x27 cm

CITY of BATH
This series of maps and plans were first issued from May 1830 in a series of parts, the first completed work published in Moule's  English Counties Delineated...by Thomas Moule...London, George Virtue 1837. Several editions followed until 1839 and the plates were then used by George Virtue and his son James Sprent Virtue in A Complete and Universal Dictionary of the English Language by the Rev. James Barclay until 1857. The engraving of the plates was shared between James Bingley, William Schmollinger and John Dower. 
The maps are commonly known by the author of the first publication, Thomas Moule (1784-1851), born in Marylebone on January 14th 1784. He was a bookseller in Grosvenor Square between 1816 and 1822. He was inspector of 'blind letters' in the General Post Office for forty years and also held the office of Chamber-keeper of the Lord Chamberlain's department which gave him an official residence in the stable yard, St. James, where he spent the later years of his life and died on January 14th 1851. During his life Thomas Moule wrote a number of books on heraldry and antiquities, these interests being reflected in the decorative neo-gothic elements and coats of arms that surround his maps. It was this return to the decorative armorial cartography of the 17th and 18th centuries that contributed to the commercial success of his maps, which remain popular to this day.

Includes vignette of Bath Guildhall and Abbey, Armorials of the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the Corporation of Bath. The armorial bottom right is untitled but are the arms of the family of Pratt, possibly Edward Pratt (c.1828-1903).

Small bottom margin and some browning the top paper edge but good example from the 1842 edition of Barclay's Dictionary in fine later hand colour.