Tunnel Books > Areaorama of Regent's Park
Areaorama: A View in the Regent's Park is a telescopic peep show: a collapsible novelty booklet that, when expanded, creates a three-dimensional scene. Published by Samuel and Joseph Fuller in 1825, the Areaorama provides a glimpse into Regent's Park in northern London, an area that was in the process of being redesigned according to a master plan by John Nash. The Areaorama consists of eight engravings that are pasted to cardboard panels and connected to each other by paper strips. When folded, the panels fit into a slipcase only a centimeter deep. When expanded to its full width of seventy-five centimeters, the hand-colored panels inside the Areaorama are visible through an opening in the front, and the perspective creates the illusion of spatial depth. The Areaorama illustrates the park villas, terrace housing, and landscape of Nash's design. For another view of the area in the nineteenth century, see the Panoramic View Round the Regent's Park, an aquatint print from 1831 that measures over two meters long when unfolded.