[Rarebooks] FS: Rare Canadian Lacrosse Title

[Donald Magee, Newport Book Store]

Beers, W.B.  Lacrosse - The National Game of Canada.  Montreal:  Dawson Brothers, 1869.  First edition.  Small 8Vo, green buckram cloth, gilt spine title (faded).  Embossed and gilded device of two crosses on front cover.  256 pages including appendix of laws of lacrosse.  Book is very slightly cocked, a few small bubbles to cloth, top edge with slight soiling, inner hinge slightly exposing mull, but this is a quite tight, with very little foxing, corners are slightly bumped.  Otherwise this is a Good, bright copy.  No markings.  Unfortunately the fold out frontis with albumen(?) photographs on two plates of players is missing the pullout half of 6 players.  Covers the origin of the sport, associations, instructions, and rules.  An important and quite rare title.  Net to all $400 post paid.

Beers, 1841-1900, was a Montreal dentist and Canadian nationalist.  At 17 years old, he set down the sport's first rules.  He was an avid promoter of lacrosse.  Book is also an early example of using photographs as a means of book illustration (William Notman of Montreal.)  OCLC search yielded one US library with a copy (SUNY Buffalo), 6 in Ontario, and 4 in Quebec.  We attempted to obtain a facsimile for missing frontis half through inter-library loan but no library contacted had a complete frontis.  Recent facsimiles, photocopies omitted the illustration.  No internet copies for sale or auction records (or B.P.I.) in  last 15 years.  Misses the Stanton and Tremaine's Bibliography of Canada to 1867 by 2 years.

Regards, Don Magee
The Newport Book Store
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