The engraver and undertaker of the work is Joseph Johnson. It was first published in 1788 and only one example surviving bears the series of maps. They are indeed not called for until the third edition. Editions with maps continued until 1809. The preface to the work is signed by John Aikin (1747-1822) who has the distinction of being named in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital ‘What would the good Dr. Aikin say if he could rise from his grave and see the Manchester of today’. Provenance: manuscript ownership inscription of Elizabeth Mary Swymmer Armstrong, 1827. Carroll 48; Chubb 288.