Treasures in Focus: Wenceslaus Hollar's Map of London (1675)
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-77) was a prolific artist and draughtsman, whose maps of London have a special importance, as it is largely from these that we know what the city looked like in the mid-17th century.
Hollar's map of London of 1675 is a bird's-eye view of London and the suburbs. It shows how, after the Great Fire of 1666, London was growing in area faster than ever before, with former satellite villages fast becoming absorbed in the urban sprawl.
This pocket-sized introduction to Hollar and his famous map reproduces a selection of details from several of the streets and buildings in the map together with a facsimile of Hollar's map, reproduced at the same size as the original.
About the author
Peter Barber is Head of Map Collections at the British Library. His previous books include The Map Book (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2005) and The Lie of the Land: The Secret Life of Maps (British Library, 2001).
