The last few posts on my blog, I’ve shown you images from Philip Morant’s 1748 book on Colchester

“The History and Antiquities of the most ancient town and borough of Colchester”

In the 1760s, he also wrote about the whole of Essex

📚“The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex”.📚

This later book was the first county history of Essex. It was published in two volumes: the first in 1763 and the last in 1768.

As with his earlier Colchester book, this history also contains beautiful elaborate engravings and plates – this time of grand Essex houses and churches, and maps of Essex.

After hunting around the internet, I’ve found that there were approximately 250 first edition copies printed, and the complete 2 volume first edition should contain

• 24 engravings of grand Essex houses and churches
• 9 maps

But, once again, many surviving books have suffered considerable damage – due to these beautiful images – with many plates removed and sold separately.

💸This perfect copy – with all its plates intact – is currently for sale in America – at the price of $3,500 (plus import duty). 💸

There is a 1970s reprint – but even copies of that start at £125 and that’s only for a copy in “acceptable” condition!!

💸I really must start doing the lottery!💸

This map is just inside the front cover of the book (if it hasn’t been detached and sold separately!).  It is a map of the entire county – as it was in the 1760s – including all the parts of Essex that are today considered to be administrative London Boroughs (although geographically still part of Essex).

Philip Morant’s map of Essex in the 1760s

Check back next week when I’ll be putting on my blog some of the beautiful maps of Essex’s Hundreds contained within Morant’s book

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