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Poetry, Verse and Rhymes; Games. 0805: Anon., London Cries

Author: Anon.
Title: London cries
Cat. Number: 0805
Date: No date but 1880?
1st Edition:
Pub. Place: London and Otley
Publisher: Walker and Sons
Price:
Pages: 1 vol., 8pp.(uncut)
Size: 17 x 10 cm.
Illustrations: Illustrated front cover plus 6 further cuts
Note: From 'The Lily Toys' series

Images of all pages of this book

Page 002 of item 0805

Introductory essay

The cries of various tradesmen and street-vendors had become the subject of chapbooks by the fifteenth century, according to Carpenter 1984: 135. By the eighteenth century, the cries had begun to form the subject of books for children, the Newbery firm publishing several versions for instance. The tradition continued at least until the late nineteenth century, as this edition in the Hockliffe Collection demonstrates. The publisher Walker and Sons, of Otley in West Yorkshire before the firm's move to London, also produced New London Cries in c.1820: see 0818-0819.

The format of these books was always fairly standard. A wood-cut or engraving of the street-vendor was accompanied by a short verse describing his or her occupation, and including his or her distinctive advertising call: 'ALl round and sound, my Ripe Kentish Cherries', for example (p.3). Besides the cherry-seller, the other trades featuring here are sellers of brooms, crockery, mackerel and hot mutton dumplings, and a dustman, whose trade was the removal of household waste.

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Carpenter, Humphrey & Pritchard, Mari, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, Oxford: OUP, 1984