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Title: Mogg's London and its Environs drawn from The Latest Surveys
- Author: Edward Mogg
- Date: c.1860
- Condition: Issued folding and linen-backed with minor foxing and toning more prominent at left. Covers are slightly worn and spine is split down the middle.
- Inches: 33 1/8 x 24 1/2 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 84.13 x 62.23 [Paper]
- Product ID: 308751
Edward and William Mogg sought to bring order to the increasingly complex transportation network of mid-nineteenth-century London. Propelled by the Industrial Revolution, the capital expanded at an extraordinary rate and had become the world’s largest city by the 1820s. Its growth produced an intricate web of streets, railways, docks, and public conveyances that could prove daunting even to the experienced traveler.
Through the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, the Mogg brothers issued a succession of practical maps and travel guides designed to make this rapidly changing metropolis more navigable. On this example, a clearly numbered grid is laid across the dense pattern of streets, rail lines, and docks, permitting quick consultation of the accompanying index. The index identifies streets and notable places, as well as railway stations and horse-drawn cab stands; it even records the legally prescribed cab fares.
The map also illustrates the publisher’s economical method of keeping pace with London’s continual transformation. Rather than discard an entire edition, the Moggs issued revised sections intended to be pasted over obsolete portions of the original sheet. This example retains several such overprinted updates, providing tangible evidence of the city’s relentless growth—and of the practical ingenuity required to map it.
Background on Creator
Edward Mogg was an English map publisher, engraver, and cartographic entrepreneur active in London during the first half of the nineteenth century, generally recorded as flourishing from about 1804 to 1848. Rather than being known principally as a surveyor, he was a highly productive publisher of practical, attractive maps for travelers, urban residents, and the growing market for geographical education.
Mogg issued road maps, county maps, town plans, travel guides, pocket atlases, and educational geographical materials, including dissected globes intended for children. His publications reflect the expanding demand for portable and usable geographic information in the age of improved roads, stagecoach travel, and early railways.