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 in duplicate sales. In total more than 70 items that were originally owned by Garrick are not in his collection as it now exists in the British Library. A manuscript catalogue compiled by Edward Capell, one of Garrick's closest friends, does still survive. Entitled "A catalogue of plays; the collection of David Garrick Esq", its creation was first proposed in 1756, and it formed the basis by which British Museum staff could identify what was missing when the collection came into their possession. The layout of Capell's catalogue is idiosyncratic and difficult to use. In constructing a more up-to-date catalogue