London: Prints and Drawings before 1800. By Bernard Nurse

Abstract

As the former Librarian at the Society of Antiquaries, Bernard Nurse is uniquely well placed to tell the story of the antiquarian Richard Gough (1735-1809) and his collections. Attractive and lavishly illustrated, this book easily fulfils its stated aim of making the collection ‘better known to scholars and the general public’ (p. 16). It provides 123 illustrations of prints and drawings of London subjects, accompanied by texts succinctly summarising existing scholarship on each. When Nurse focuses on Gough and his collections, particularly in the section of the intro duction about Gough and the two appendices on his letters and how to use his collec tions, the writing is fluid and informative, and hints at valuable avenues which are yet to be explored. The main body of the book is arranged topically into seven sections covering maps of London, the City of London, the Buck brothers’ pano rama of London and Westminster, Westminster, the Thames, the environs of Georgian London, and ‘London Life: Illustrating the News’. Each begins with a short thematic introduction peppered with plate references for illustrations to follow, and then the images are described in the course of thematic sections which tend to focus more on the history of the area depicted than why the images were made and collected.