EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
TRAVEL ANDTOPOGRAPHY
STOW’S SURVEY OF LONDON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
HENRY B. WHEATLEY
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THE
WISE MAN
ALL THE
WORLD’S
A SOIL
BEN JONSON
THE SURVEY
OF LONDON
BY ❦ JOHN
STOW Citizen
of London
LONDON PUBLISHED
by J M DENT & SONS LTD
AND IN NEW YORK
BY E P DUTTON & CO
INTRODUCTION
Stow’s Survey of London, from its first publication in 1598,has taken rank as the first authority on the history of London,but this very fame has been the cause of some injury to theunity of the work, owing to the additions of successive editors,whose words have often been quoted as if they were writtenby the original author, although often referring to occurrenceslong after Stow’s death.
What the reader of to-day wants, is the original work as itleft the hands of the veteran antiquary, or as nearly as thechange of spelling allows, because this gives him a vividpicture of Elizabethan London—the city in which Shakespearelived and worked among a multitude of the men and womenof those “spacious days,” respecting whom we are all eagerto learn something more. The Survey is a masterpiece oftopographical literature written by a Londoner of ripe experience,who was interested in everything that occurred aroundhim.
Stow founded his work upon documents of great valuecollected by himself, and also upon the splendid series ofmanuscripts belonging to the city of Lo