The London Spy

Issued in parts from 1698 and collected in 1703, this satirical tour follows a country visitor and his London-born guide through taverns, coffee-houses, markets, prisons, and pleasure gardens. Ward's narrator records slang, cheating trades, street food, prostitution, and the noise of Bartholomew Fair and the river. The pieces are arranged by place rather than by a single plot: each excursion is a sketch of a district and its people. The book is a coarse topographic satire of late Stuart London, not a polite guidebook and not a novel of one hero's reform.

Quarter bound in black cloth with red marbled paper sides and monochrome illustrated dust-jacket. Page tops stained black.