Narrative

12. Despite curiosity about other parts, there was no place like home. The Picture of London, ‘a guide to all the curiosities, amusements, exhibitions, public establishments, and remarkable objects, in and near London’, also including tables and maps, ran to many editions. Essentially a guidebook, it is important to note that many tourists in London would have been from other parts of Britain, and that London itself changed quickly and dramatically in the Romantic period. Further, although priced high at 5s. 6d., the title-page indicates that it was available at ‘the Bars of all the principal Inns and Coffee-houses’, thus suggesting a much larger readership for a work that was quite likely to make the rounds in other ways.