The Criers and Hawkers of London

Fascination with the lives of pedlars and hawkers first expressed itself in English art around 1600. Marcellus Laroon's Cryes of the City of London drawne after the Life was published in 1687 and became a best-seller the day it appeared, remaining popular for nearly a century and a half - eight editions followed the first until it finally went out of print after 1821. Laroon's volume of designs remains the most sophisticated and influential collection of street cries with its detailed chronicling of London working life. The present volume makes the Cryes available once again as a valuable document for the scholars of popular British art, social history and costume studies; more so because of the inclusion of plates from the 1760 edition in which designs were updated to provide us with a unique comparison of the changes in art and costume between 1687 and the late eighteenth century. The book also contains nineteen hitherto unpublished sketches by Laroon held at Blenheim Palace.