First edition, of this comprehensive history of the area, centered on the current King's Cross in northwest London, written twenty years after the arrival of the first passenger trains there. Augmented by the addition of watercolours by Frederick Cook after engravings, a little apologetic note from the dedicatee of the book, George Cruikshank, making his excuses to "Capt. Chambers", and hundreds of engraved portraits and views, mostly from the nineteenth century.