Capper, Benjamin Pitts. A Topographical Dictionary of the United Kingdom; containing every City, Town, Village, Hamlet, Parish, District, Object, and Place, in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Small Islands Independent: with Forty-Seven Maps. London: Geo. B. Whittaker, 1825. [10803]
Half brown leather with blue marbled boards, light wear with good joints, no cracks or damage, 8 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches, tight. Private bookplate of Clayton W. McCall, D.C.M. Recent brown end papers. vi, 865, [2], 152, [2], 40 generally bright and clean pages, some with foxing, particularly near the plates. With frontispiece and forty-five numbered maps, some folding; the imprint on the maps has the date 1824. The maps and text are in very good condition; this is probably a later 19th - early 20th century binding. Very good. Hardcover.
This has the unnumbered frontispiece map, then maps numbered I-XLV. We count a total of 46 maps. We find another copy of this edition online with the same 46 maps (not 47 as in the title).
The former owner Clayton McCall (1891-1973) is remembered as "an eccentirc, an antiquarian, an amateur historian, and the family know-it-all". He received the Distinguished Conduct Medal fighting with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France in 1918 due to his heroism displayed during the Battle of Canal du Nord. McCall proudly signed his name with "D. C. M." ever after. See Douglas Glover, Out & Back substack, The Fire Wife.
Benjamin Pitts Capper (1772-1844), b. Middlesex, England; d. London, England. Capper was the compiler of several reference works of English statistics and history. This Topographical Dictionary was first published in 1808, according to Allibone. We think it is complete, despite the call for 47 maps on the title page; the other copies that we find also have 46 maps, as this one does.
