Peter Clink's Remarkables of London

Broadside or flyer printed with verses of comic songs sung by Mr W.H.Williams, at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Entitled 'Peter Clink's Remarkables of London' the songs refer to the capital's most popular attractions. From his first appearance at Vauxhall in 1824 W.H. Williams quickly became one of the most popular performers at the Pleasure Gardens.

Broadsides printed with songs that could be heard in theatres and pleasure gardens were a popular form of street literature. Mass printed by small back street printers, often based in the Seven Dials area of London they were sold cheaply by street hawkers particularly to those attending performances to enable them to sing along. This broadside was printed by James Catnach, the most famous of the Seven Dials jobbing printers who opened his printing business in Monmouth Court in 1813. On his death in 1842, Catnach's business was continued by his sister and her children. Woodcuts and type-faces were used so often that they were often ' worn to a degree of indecipherability that hid their almost complete irrelevance to the text they were supposed to illustrate.'