A Poetic Survey round Birmingham

First Illustrated Trade Directory [TRADE DIRECTORY.] BISSET, James. A Poetic Survey round Birmingham: with a brief description of the different Curiosities and Manufactories of the place. Intended as a Guide to Strangers. Accompanied by a magnificent Directory: with the Names, Professions, &c. superbly engraved in emblematic Plates. Birmingham, Swinney & Hawkins, 1800. First edition of one of the earliest illustrated trade directories. On the finely engraved plates, Bisset lists more than three hundred merchants, bankers, tradesmen and manufacturers operating in and around Birmingham. Manufacturers are grouped together by trade, with illustrations of the most prominent factories or industrial tools in the background. The most famous of the factories is of course Matthew Bolton's Soho Works, which in addition to the steam engine business includes his button works, his mint and various other metal manufactories. The Soho Works was a complete manufacturing system, where each worker had only a limited range of work without any need to change position and tools constantly. The letterpress section contains Bisset's poetry which takes the reader on an enthusiastic tour of the city, with the express purpose of attracting visitors and trade to the city of Birmingham. The advertisement bound at the end indicates that manufacturers and tradesmen were invited to subsidize its production by paying either for a single line mention or for half page and full page display advertisements. Thus the overall cost of the directory was kept low. James Bisset (1762? - 1832) was an artist, publisher and popular poet. At the age of fifteen he became an artist's apprentice in Birmingham, and later established a museum and shop for the sale of curiosities in New Street. 'He had great facility in composing amusing and grandiloquent verses on the topics of the day so as to hit the popular fancy, and, while he obtained a considerable profit from their sale, they served to attract customers to his 'museum' and to advertise his medals' (DNB). ESTC t143270; Johnson 96; Norton 716. 8vo, (228 x 146) frontispiece map, pp. viii, [9]-62, [2], with 27 engraved emblematic plates, in all 28 engraved plates; a.e.g.; Royal paper copy on heavy wove paper watermarked Whatman; original publisher's presentation binding, decorated dark maroon straight grain morocco with gilt tooling to sides and spine, and oval green morocco inlaid title decorated with stars; extremities rubbed, but still a very nice copy.