A Survey of London: Reprinted from the text of 16032 volumes

by John Stow, Charles Lethbridge Kingsford (Editor)

Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the
last century.

Genres: History, London, Nonfiction, Classics, Medieval, Reference

928 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, John Stow was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. He was admitted to the Merchant Taylor's company in 1547 and had established by that year a business at a house near the well within Aldgate, between Leadenhall and Fenchurch Street. Pretty soon his antiquarian nature took charge.

He made the acquaintance of the leading antiquarians of his time, including William Camden, and in 1561 he published his first work, The woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed with divers additions whiche were never in printe before. This was followed in 1565 by his Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles, which was frequently reprinted, with slight variations, during his lifetime.

Through the patronage of Archbishop Matthew Parker, Stow was able to print the Flores historiarum of Matthew of Westminster in 1567, the Chronicle of Matthew Paris in 1571, and the Historia brevis of Thomas Walsingham in 1574.

At the request of Parker he had compiled a "farre larger volume," a history of Britain, but circumstances were unfavourable to its publication and the manuscript was lost.

The work for which Stow is best known is his Survey of London, published in 1598, not only interesting for the quaint simplicity of its style and its amusing descriptions and anecdotes, but of unique value for its minute account of the buildings, social condition and customs of London in the time of Elizabeth I. A second edition appeared in his lifetime in 1603, a third with additions by Anthony Munday in 1618, a fourth by Munday and Dyson in 1633, a fifth with interpolated amendments by John Strype in 1720.

Stow died in poverty in 1605 and was buried in the church of St Andrew Undershaft, London, where his monument still remains.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Docked one star, not for the wonderful work of Stow, but because they "translated" it and got rid of all the old variant spellings and assorted oddities. I wanted to de-code it and play with it, rather than be stuck with a simplified neutered text.

[Matthew Eyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, how many happy hours have I spent wandering the streets of London with my hero, John Stow. Poor as a church mouse, the City of London eventually gave him a stipend for his chronicling of the greatest city on earth. Marvel at the names: Frying Pan Alley, Crutched Friars, Bleeding Heart Yard (the Tories think Gary Lineker and co live there), and the home of my ex mother in law, Savage Gardens. A joy from start to finish: this must be approximately my 33rd re-read!

[^ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I worked in the City of London for a number of years. This was the perfect lunchtime book to wander the streets with, travelling from the twentieth century back into the sixteenth (first orientate yourself according to the City churches). Though the Great Fire in 1666 and Blitz in WW2 significantly changed the streetscapes of the City of London, this book does a marvellous job of bringing it all back to life.