Charles G Harper

Excerpt from The Bath Road: History, Fashion,& Frivolity on an Old Highway Old Village Lock-up, Cranford (title-page) Sign of the White Bear, now at Fickles Hole The White Horse Inn, Fetter Lane. Demolished 1898 Courtyard of the Old Bell, Holborn. Demolished 1897 Hyde Park Corner, 1786 Hyde Park Corner, 1792 The Halfway House 1848. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries By Charles G. Harper

The road to Brighton-the main route, pre-eminently the road-is measured from the south side of Westminster Bridge to the Aquarium. It goes by Croydon, Redhill, Horley, Crawley, and Cuckfield, and is (or is supposed to be) 511/2 miles in length. Of this prime route-the classic way-there are several longer or shorter variations, of which the way through Clapham, Mitcham, Sutton, and Reigate, to Povey Cross is the chief. The modern "record" route is the first of these two, so far as Hand Cross, where it branches off and, instead of going through Cuckfield, proceeds to Brighton by way of Hickstead and Bolney, avoiding Clayton Hill and rejoining the initial route at Pyecombe.

EXTRAIT: When Harrison Ainsworth wrote Rookwood, that fantastic romance of highway robbery and the impossible exploits of the Rookwood family, he did a singular injustice to a most distinguished seventeenth-century highwayman, John Nevison by name, and transferred the glory of his wonderful ride to York to Dick Turpin, who never owned a "Black Bess," and who never did anything of the kind. Turpin, by virtue of Ainsworth's glowing pages, has become a popular hero and stands full in the limelight, while the real gallant figure is only dimly seen in the cold shade of neglect. John or "William" Nevison, by some accounts, was born at Pontefract, in 1639, of "honest and reasonably-estated parents." Sometimes we find him styled Nevison, at other times he is "alias Clerk" in the proclamations issued, offering rewards for his arrest. Occasionally, in the chap-books, we find John Nevison and William Nevison treated as two separate and distinct persons, no doubt because the recorded adventures of this truly eminent man were so widely distributed over the country, that it was difficult to believe them the doings of one person. But there seems to be no reasonable doubt that one and the same man was the hero of all these doings, as also of the famous Ride to York. Of course it is now by far too late to snatch from Turpin the false glory bestowed upon him. A hundred romances, a century of popular plays, have for ever in the popular mind identified him with the Ride to York, and with all manner of achievements and graces that were never his. Lies are brazen and immortal; truth is modest; and the Great Turpin Myth is too fully established to be thoroughly scotched. Charles George Harper (1863 - 1943) was an English author and illustrator. Born in London, England, Harper wrote many self-illustrated travel books, exploring the regions, roads, coastlines, literary connections, old inns etc. of Britain. In later life, he lived in Petersham. Aside from the some 170 topographical works, he also wrote a few books on drawing and its techniques, including English Pen Artists of To-day (1892) and A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of Reproduction (1894), as well as an anti-feminist polemic, Revolted Woman; past, present, and to come (1894), and a satirical novel, Hearts Do Not Break: a Tale of the Lower Slopes (1896), attacking logrolling among the London literary set. Critical assessment R. E. D. Sketchley's English book-illustration of to-day (1903) characterised Harper's travel books as "... written and drawn with spirited observation. His drawing is not so picturesque as his writing. It has reticence and justness of expression that would not serve in relating tales of the road, but which, together with a sense of colour and of what is pictorial, combine to form an effective and frequently distinctive style of illustration". N. W. Webster's article The English traveller describes him as "more a capable draughtsman than a creative artist, although his books would lose much without his delightful sketches".

Title: Royal Winchester. Wanderins in and about the Ancient Capital of England ... With ... illustrations from original sketches by C. G. Harper. Publisher: British Library, Historical Print EditionsThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats: books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC. The HISTORY OF BRITAIN & IRELAND collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. As well as historical works, this collection includes geographies, travelogues, and titles covering periods of competition and cooperation among the people of Great Britain and Ireland. Works also explore the countries' relations with France, Germany, the Low Countries, Denmark, and Scandinavia. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library Alfred Guy; Harper, Charles G.; 1889. xii. 304 p.; 8 . 10349.f.12.