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Hutton, William.
History of the Roman Wall, Which Crosses the Island of Britain, from the German Ocean to the Irish Sea.
Publisher: Nichols, Son and Bentley, London;
Date of Publication: 1813
Stock Code: 14309
Second edition with corrections. Octavo, pp. [i,ii] iii-xxxi [xxxii], [1] 2-272. Complete with ten illustrated plates, including one folding map, and illustrations within text. In a modern library binding of brown cloth with gilt titles on a red label to the spine and marbled end-papers. Ex library with catalogue number to the spine and label to front free endpaper, despite this it remains an attractive copy. Energetic and eccentric, William Hutton (1723–1815), was initially apprenticed to a Derby silk-mill, but taught himself book-binding, determined to set up in the young and thriving city of Birmingham. He moved there in 1750, at first selling second-hand books, then new books, before acquiring a paper warehouse and earning a comfortable living. In 1782 he published his History of Birmingham, the first of many significant written works. Hutton, an early adopter of a chiefly vegetarian diet, was also famous for his walking exploits. He is generally considered to be the first person to walk the full length of Hadrian's Wall since Roman times. His journey northward from Birmingham to Carlisle, eastward along the wall to the North Sea and back again, before heading home, covered around 600 miles, entirely on foot, sleeping under bushes and fording streams along the way, was undertaken in 1800 at the grand age of 77. Hutton’s account of his expedition, first published in 1801, includes a history of the wall and a description of the surviving ruins along its length. £125.00