Hawkers, Beggars and Quacks: Portraits from The Cries of London

The Cryes of the City of London, a book by Marcellus Laroon, presents a panorama of Londons marginal men and women, including street vendors, hustlers, and petty criminals, with their cries and commentary on their trade and lives. It explores historical archives for contemporary reports on these hawkers and provides a fascinating insight into their lives.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 10 September 2021
Publisher: Bodleian Library

Buy my Dish of great Eeles,
Any Old Iron take money for,
Twelve Pence a Peck Oysters,
Buy my fat Chickens,
Fair Lemons & Oranges Marcellus Laroons

The Cryes of the City of London, drawn after the Life presents, in seventy-four striking portraits, a panorama of London's marginal men and women: street vendors, hustlers, and petty criminals, together with the shouts (or cries) they used to hawk their wares, as they existed at the end of the seventeenth century. Following an illustrated introduction that sets Laroons engravings within the tradition of the Cries, each portrait is beautifully reproduced with a commentary that illuminates the individual street seller and their trade. The commentaries provide a wealth of detail about their dress, the equipment they used to ply their trade, the meat and drink of those they served, and their own diets. This book also mines historical archives for contemporary reports about the colorful and often desperate lives of these hawkers. Drawing on the historic material found in the Burney Collection of English newspapers, this book provides a fascinating insight into the men and women who made their livelihood, legally and illegally, on the streets of England's capital.

Weight: 920g
Dimension: 200 x 252 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781851245512