Rare edition
John Summerson (text) - The Microcosm of London by T. Rowlandson & A.C. Pugin - Harmondsworth, A King Penguin/Penguin Books Limited., 1943 - 1st edition in this format - 32p.+6 color plates (plates III to VI & XI to XVI missing) - Harcover: black-illustrated cardboard binding - 12.40x18.40cm - Good copy: missing plates: see supra), spine cover missing, traces of use and wear on the cover.

•      Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) was an English artist and cartoonist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social and political satires, as well as a large number of illustrations for novels, humorous books, and topographical works.
•      Augustus Charles Pugin (1762-1832), born Auguste-Charles Pugin, was an Anglo-French artist, architectural draftsman, and writer on medieval architecture. He was born in Paris, then in the Kingdom of France, but his father was Swiss, and Pugin himself was to spend most of his life in England. Pugin left France during the Revolutionary period for unclear reasons about 1798 and later entered the Royal Academy Schools in London, England to improve his skills. Shortly afterwards he obtained a position as an architectural draftsman with the architect John Nash. After considering and abandoning a career in architecture Pugin married and settled on a career as a commercial artist working primarily for publishers of illustrated books. He was a skilled watercolourist as well as an accomplished draftsman.
•      Sir John Newenham Summerson (1904–1992) was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century. In 1943 he was Deputy Director of National Building Record. (Sources: Wikipedia)
•      Excerpt from the article of April 27, 1924 in the 'Spitalfields Life': "How very pleasant it is to be a tourist in the metropolis of 1809, thanks to the magnificent plates of the 'Microcosm of London.' Here are the wonders of the capital, so appealingly colored and so satisfyingly organized within the elegant classical architecture that frames most social activity, while also conveniently ignoring the domestic reality of the greater majority of the population."

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