REVIEWS 225

ERIC J. EVANS and JEFFREY RICHARDS, A Social History of Britain in Postcards 1870-1930 (London: Longman, 1980. Pp. vii+l51. c8.95)

In this entertaining and instructive book the authors claim that the postcard captures the England of the industrial revolution and “the simple record of everyday life” : hardly the former since-as explained in the introduction-the postcard was “born” only in 1870; perhaps the latter, though the poor are mainly conspicuous by their absence. Nevertheless, a surprisingly wide range of contemporary life is glimpsed through the selection of 180 cards, evenly divided between sections on urban life, work, food and shopping, travel and transport, leisure and, inescapably in view of the profusion of cards it generated, the seaside. The compact well-balanced commentaries on these topics and the informative captions on individual cards justify the tag “social history”. The format of two cards and captions per page packs in much information, occasionally at the cost of visual clarity: a magnifying glass is recommended for ageing eyes! Both new and commonplace are found, the choice no doubt partly reflecting the authors’ interests: for instance there is soccer, cricket and bowls but no racing and rugby; the treatment of the countryside is limited; and, despite the wide geographical spread of pictures, there is less attention to regional contrast than geographers might expect. However, the book would provide an interesting introduction to social history for the general public as well as a reliable supplement to standard undergraduate texts.

University of Liverpool R. LAWTON

M. BARKE and R. J. BUSWELL (Eds), Historical Atlas of Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic, 1980. Pp. iv+76. E3.00)

A small atlas of a city, town or region is a good opportunity for a team to pool their research interests and present a rapidly assimilated portrait of a place. This one is necessarily selective but tells us a great deal about the historical geography of Newcastle for all that. To celebrate the 900th anniversary of the city this limited edition (I am proud to possess number 278) has a mayoral foreword, 36 plates (with 87 separate figures) each with accompanying text opposite, and a bibliography. Chronologically, in addition to four plates on the region and physical setting, the allocation is roughly five plates up to 1800, 15 for the nineteenth century, and 12 for the twentieth century, doubtless a fair reflection of readily available information. The emphasis is chiefly social-population, migration, residential patterns and public health-with several plates on public utilities and planning. Employment receives far less attention and local politics none, but this apart the fare is varied and interesting. Cartographically the production is adequate but rather uneven ; the wide range of reduction factors applied to line and letter work should have been avoided and the maps by Speed (1611) and Oliver (1830) could have been reproduced at more appropriate scales.

Stanford’s Library Map of London and its Suburbs. Facsimile edition with an introduction by Ralph Hyde (Lympne: Harry Margary, 1980. Pp. iv+24 sheets. Case bound g25.00, card covered &15.00, loose sheets &lO*OO)

One of the advantages of Stanford’s famous map of 1862 was that, at six inches to the mile, it was a perfect combination of handlability and rich detail. Even by the incompar- able standards of the closing years of the copper plate era in cartography it was a superb achievement, packed with information, beautifully engraved (on steel in this case) and presenting a clear picture of the mid-Victorian metropolis. Harry Margary’s facsimile does it full justice and could not possibly be bettered as a reproduction. Ralph Hyde’s readable introductory essay tells the historian all he could wish for: ‘Edward Stanford’s London’, as Mayhew viewed it from a balloon in 1862; an outline history of Stanford’s