Islington

London England: Hamish Hamilton, 1974. Hardback. Couple of small tears to edge of D/J. Boadicea may or may not have been routed at King's Cross, but it is certain that the XXth legion had a summer camp at Islington. The author entertainingly covers two millennia in this account of London's newest fashionable borough. Islington has its place in Domesday Book, and was rich in history when Henry VIII - and the infant Pepys - hunted duck in Islington's ponds. Raleigh and Bacon lived in Canonbury, Dr. Johnson came for his health and his friends, and John 'Liberty' Wilkes was true after his fashion to Clerkenwell. But this is the Islington too of James Pollard, who painted the Royal Mail coaches outside her inns, of George Cruikshank, who quarrelled with Dickens in Amwell Street, of Sicker and his devotion to the same Barnsbury where the journal Punch was born. Famous, notorious and eccentric figures abound in thsis fascinating portfolio of characters whose lives Mr. Harris relates to the social and historical background of their time. Born in Islington himself, Mr. Harris's view is a personal one. He is sensitive to the unique charm and changing fortunes to the area, he evokes with humour and wry nostalgia the Islington of his youth, and looks not dispassionately at the face of Islington today. Illustrated. 222 pp. (We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. Academic, Scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.) . First Edition. Cloth. Very Good/Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Harback.