Thank you for providing a genuine link to the map. I totally disagree that people in the 21st century are profiteering from such antiquities. Not all of us have the funds to purchase books of such huge mark ups!!!

However, if you want an original map, printed from the 1746 etching, as sold in one of the original offerings, you should have a look at how much a large (12′ 7″ × 6′ 7″) “Zone 1/2” map (practically the same area covered in the Locating London link given by Sarah Jones of MOLA in her post above), and made from 24 original sheets, can sell for at

https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-a-large-map-of-london-john-rocque-5818384 .

I thought the guide price was optimistic at £30‐40000, but at more than double that, and over £1000/sqft, it’s a very expensive wall covering.

(The same map can be downloaded from Wikipedia (Library of Congress copy) and printed at ~320px/in should you wish to achieve the same scale and size.)

Tashan Essien you may find this site helopful://www.dulwichsociety.com/dulwich-estate-maps

Publishers trying to earn a crust by publishing or digitizing long out-of-copyright books or maps aren’t doing anything wrong.

However public bodies who own physical copies of rare maps or books and allow commercial companies to digitize them, and assert copyright over the images, are doing something very wrong indeed.

I have no objection to a museum or library paying for the service of having a map digitized but they should retain copyright of the images and, in my opinion, release them into the public domain. Of course I have no objection to them charging (modestly) for a download, or selling a CD of images, but they should not be re-introducing copyright on images of something so old.

Yes, thank you thank you thank you! This website was a phenomenal help!

Sarah, thanks for the link to an incredibly useful web resource.

Hardly. Or are you saying that every publisher that publishes an out of copyright book (Dickens etc.) is doing something “wrong”?

All this stuff IS in the public domain, and you can find it if you go and look for it. But what Old House have done is take this historic map, gone to the trouble of reproducing it (and on good quality paper if their 1863 map is anything to go by), put it in a nice box and making available for people to buy and keep. I can’t see how there’s anything wrong in that.

I’m not sure if you realise it, but the publishers, Old House, are specialists in publishing facsimiles of historic publications. They have quite a few out, including other maps, the Bradshaw Guide made famous by Michael Portillo (that one is a big seller btw), and reproductions of various Baedeker guide books. Personally, I think what they’re doing is marvellous.

http://www.locatinglondon.org/