A New And Accurate Description Of The Present Great Roads And The Principal Cross Roads Of England And Wales, Commencing At London, And Continued To The Farthest Parts Of The Kingdom, With The Several Branches Leading Out Of Them; And A Description Of The Several Towns That Stand Thereon. Divided Into Four Parts, Viz. Western, Northern, Eastern, And Southern. To Which Are Added, The Ancient Roman Roads And Stations In Britain. Also Some General Rules To Know The Original Of The Names Of Places In England, A List Of Mitred Abbots, And An Alphabetical List Of Fairs Regulated According To The New Style. (Travelling Atlas.) Travel & Topography

FIRST EDITION. Large folding engraved map at rear; map torn from gutter margin and a little frayed where it extends beyond the binding, but no loss; uniformly toned; pp. [8], 168, lxiv, 8vo; contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt roll at board edges spine ruled gilt in compartments with raised bands; corners bumped, joints a little tender; armorial bookplate of Thomas Edwards-Freeman (1726-1806) director of the South Sea Company, and MP. for Steyning and Lewes. Scarce in commerce, this written atlas of the major roads of England and Wales arranged according to the main arterial routes from London. It includes useful paragraphs of information about noteworthy towns en route, with details such as principle manufactures, ordnance, churches and seats of learning, branching roads, alternative routes, and major junctions. Historically minded, the author sometimes includes etymology of place names, and a great deal of information about Roman Britain, including their main settlements the roads which connected them. At the end are a handy table outlining the new Mail Roads and their promised delivery times, the main postal towns in the kingdom, and - a rather arcane inclusion - a list of mitred abbots. It closes with a list of the country's significant fairs, striking for its length. These fairs, 'regulated according to the new style', are those which succumbed to the increasingly far-reaching legislation which was put in place from the 1730s with an aim to ameliorate their disorderly potential (see: Anne Wohlcke, The 'Perpetual Fair': Gender, disorder and urban amusement in eighteenth-century London (Manchester, 2014) p. 19.). In all, a charming little book with a host of sundry information for the mid eighteenth-century traveller. (Fordham p.23)