Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, Sporting Anecdotes...

£3,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

Schwerdt lists this as the third edition 'the same as the preceding edition [Young edition of 1819] with certain modifications in the text' but Abbey suggests that this could instead be the 1813 edition mentioned by Bohn (1841). 100 of the plates relate to foreign field sports in general while the final ten are all of New South Wales. They includes Arabs hunting ostriches, Russians fishing, a chapter on whaling, elephant and rhinoceros hunting, bull fighting, and oppossum hunting in New South Wales. 'The coloured plates in this work expecially those drawn by Howitt, are fine, both as regards draughtsmanship and colouring, and the production as a whole possesses a certain cachet' says Schwerdt of the first Orme edition. The same could be said of this edition, whose plates are fine impressions, beautifully coloured. The text was by Captain Thomas Williamson who also wrote the text for Oriental Field Sports. Folio (34 x 25.5 cm); 110 hand-coloured aquatint plates, without half-title, armorial bookplate to pastedown, some very light offsetting from plates, small internal tear to pp1-2 without loss, small marginal tear to pp5-6, stitching of first few gatherings a little loose, the plates continue to be bright and clear; 19th-century full straight-grained morocco, boards panelled in gilt, gilt spine in six compartments with title lettered in gilt, board edges and turn ins ruled in gilt, all edges gilt, later endpapers, upper hinge cracked, lower hinge starting to split, edges a li

• Binding: Hardcover

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