Charles Hindley (d.1893) wrote several books on British popular literature including Curiosities of Street Literature and a history of the cries of London. This book, first published in a limited edition in 1869 but here reprinted from the 1886 edition, tells the colourful story of John (1769 1813) and James (1792 1842) Catnach, the father-and-son printers who were leaders in the expanding market for cheap publications for the masses. John's contribution was to start using real paper and printer's ink instead of the cheap substitutes current at the time. He was also noted for embellishing his...

William West (1770 1854) was a bookseller and antiquarian who wrote a series of articles about his experiences in the book trade. In 1825, West published a collection of alehouse jokes, stories and trivia under the pseudonym 'One Of the Old School'. This edition is an expanded version, edited and annotated by popular writer Charles Hindley (d. 1893) and first published in 1875. A boozy, more whimsical cousin to Ambrose Bierce's 1906 The Devil's Dictionary, the book features playful definitions of tavern slang and terminology. In addition to witty stories and puns, there is also a wealth of...

James Catnach (1792 1841) became famous for publishing satirical ballads and sensational accounts of famous murders in his daily broadsheets, first printed in his own home in Seven Dials, London. Capitalising on the turbulent times, Catnach grew rich on producing lurid descriptions of crimes and the trials and executions that followed them. His imagination occasionally over-stepped the mark; he was once jailed for libel after claiming that a local butcher made his sausages from human flesh. This sympathetic and entertaining biography of Catnach, first published in 1878 by London raconteur...

This 1881 publication, enlivened by over 200 illustrations, vividly portrays London's street traders and their wares over the centuries.