[Rarebooks] fa: SPORTSMAN'S MAGAZINE 1823-24 - BOXING Angling CRICKET Hunting GOLF Racing &c.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 22. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/86sq6yf

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The Sportsman's Magazine; or, Chronicle of Games and Pastimes. Vol. I & II [August 1823-July 1824]. London: Hodgson & Co., 1823-24. FIRST EDITION. Two volumes, 12mos (14.25 cm) bound in 19th-century polished calf and marbled boards, gilt-tooled spines; 346, 322 pp; engraved plates, woodcuts. Schwerdt Hunting, Hawking, Shooting Illustrated) II, p. 221; Padwick Bibliogaphy of Cricket 1211-3.

The first two volumes, comprising 12 issues, of this rare and short-lived (1823-25) magazine dedicated to all things sporting: pugilism, horse racing, fox-hunting, shooting, cricket, angling, "the golf," rowing, sailing, ratting, cockfighting, hawking, wrestling, archery, tennis, skittles, "pedestrianism", etc., etc.

With all 14 plates called for (one folding, one colored), engraved title-pages and supplements for each volume; 13 title/contents pages (for the months Sept. 1824-July 1825, plus the Supplements). Bound without the August contents page and the supplementary parts of "Barker's Delight", as usual. Wear and rubbing to the boards and extremities, front hinge of vol. II cracked, but board is secure; engraved title and folding frontispiece of vol. I somewhat soiled, the latter repaired on the verso; one plate trimmed slightly and tipped in, another plate partially and tastefully hand-colored by an early owner; pages moderately age-toned with occasional offsetting and soiling. Early/original owner's book labels and signatures of J. Richards (one of which is on the verso of vol. I's engraved title, with some bleedthrough).

PLATES include portraits of pugilists Tom Cribb, John Jackson, Josh. Hudson, Thomas Winter Spring, Jem Ward; "the celebrated Female Pedestrian" Emma Freeman; Isaak Walton, Charles Cotton; A View of the Dog Billy "winning the Match of Killing One Hundred Rats in Six Minutes"; View of the Otter Hunt at Ewton, in Devonshire; View of the Contest for Dogget's Coat and Badge, on the First of August, 1823 (folding); etc.

CONTENTS include monthly or semi-monthly sections on pugilism ("the Slaughtering Fight between the Bath Tinman and Stevens," etc.), cricket matches, horse racing, coursing, cocking, angling, the turf, Aquatic Sports, Pedestrianism, Archery; The Cockney's Journal; The Art of Gymnastic Training; Ancient Sports in Greece, Africa, etc.; biographies; songs, anecdotes; and much more. Vol. I with a 5-page "Table of the Fish Usually Angled for in the Waters of Great Britain; With the Places, Seasons, Time of Day, Depth from the Ground, and Baits suited to their Habits"; vol. II with an unusual early description of "The Golf" ("an amusement said to be peculiar to Scotland...").