Lichfield on the main routes from London to the north-west and Birmingham to the north-east. It also became a centre of great intellectual activity, being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward; this prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers". In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described Lichfield as 'a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city', the principal town in the region after Chester. During the late 18th and early 19th century much of the medieval city was rebuilt with the red-brick Georgian style buildings still to be seen
Garrick Collection of old English plays: a catalogue with an historical introduction". Garrick Collection The British Library's Garrick Collection is a collection of early printed editions of English drama amassed by the actor and playwright David Garrick. The collection was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1779. Little evidence about the provenance of Garrick's collection is found in his archives and correspondence. However, internal evidence from the books themselves suggests that a large proportion of the printed plays came from the collections of Robert and Edward Harley, the 1st and 2nd Earls of Oxford, and the bookseller and writer, Robert Dodsley. Other