first edition Wraps
1889 · London
London: Chiswick Press, 1889. First Edition Presumed. Wraps. Very Good. An excursion to a bygone pampered stay in London. 8vo. 84 pp. The deluxe Hotel Metropole opened in 1885. Located between Trafalgar Square and Westminster Palace (Parliament), it was requisitioned by the British government during both World Wars, and the buidling was converted permanently to government offices after the Second World War. The government sold the building back into private hands in 2007, and after a restoration, it has re-opened as a five star Hotel Corinthia. The "souvenir" brochure has a wide mix of information about both the hotel and the surrounding city, and it was intended both as a repository of practical information for the guest and tourist while staying at the hotel as well as a keepsake after the guest bid his farewell. Thus there is the kind of information that today we will find contained in a binder sitting atop a guest room desk, with a general description of the hotel's appointments and services, an overview of the sights of London, a list of recommended retailers and service providers, and then 38 pages of advertisements, which should be interesting to many of us even today for various reasons. One of the most interesting "morsel" in the whole brochure are the pages relating to dining. Presented are the menus for three meals each day, along with comments there and elsewhere about timing, which are quite different from custom today, and then there are quite a few food and drink related ads. Of the many curious ads, one example is for "English and American Painless Dentistry". Another to be singled out is for Aspinall's Neigeline, a skin product, with a testimonial -- one which would seem pale in our jaded times -- from Adelina Patti, who was then about as big a celebrity as one could be. The wraps have wear, with some loss of the paper on the spine. A faint dampstain on the front, and a shadow of a card on the back, with light soiling besides.
(Inventory #: 002725)