Saturday, December 03, 2005
Map Delivery
A wonderful Guardian piece on the pleasures of old maps -- I find these and ancient tourist guidebooks incredibly useful as a tool in creating historical travelogues -- includes this charming anecdote by Paul Hamilos:
That map, by the way, is still available from the London Topographical Society. Here's a detail from it:
No prizes for guessing what the color red indicated....
I once ordered a copy of Charles Booth's 1889 Descriptive Map of London Poverty from the London Topographical Society. Weeks, then months, passed, and I heard nothing. I may even have forgotten that I had ordered it. Then, early one Sunday morning, I was woken up by the sound of the doorbell. An elderly gentleman in a deerstalker hat with a tube under his arm asked my name, confirmed that I was the intended recipient of Booth's map, handed it to me, and was off. If only all purchases were made like that.
That map, by the way, is still available from the London Topographical Society. Here's a detail from it:
No prizes for guessing what the color red indicated....
