Nothing like Tallis's directory of London streets had appeared before, and only Google maps has superseded it since. The complete series, originally issued in eighty-eight parts, with descriptive text and advertisements, the current album includes the street maps to parts 1 - 69, but bound without part 5, Newgate Street to St. Christopher's Hospital. Starting at New London Bridge, and ending with Westminster Bridge Road, each street is shown in extraordinary detail, every building on both sides is accurately rendered and drawn to scale, numbered and commercial use noted. A further eighteen views were issued, in slightly larger format, in 1847.

This series is amongst the earliest work of John Tallis (1818-1876). From 1842, he worked with his brother Frederick, first from an address in Cripplegate, and then Smithfield. Their partnership was dissolved in 1849, and thereafter John Tallis operated as Tallis & Company. He issued an 'Illustrated Atlas and Modern History of the World' (1851), in which each map is notably decorated with vignettes, as here.