[Rarebooks] fa: SPORTSMAN'S MAGAZINE 1823-25 - COMPLETE RUN

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Monday, Feb. 20. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/6v45sq8

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The Sportsman's Magazine; or, Chronicle of Games and Pastimes. Vol. I, II & III [August 1823-January 1825].  London: Hodgson & Co., 1823-25. FIRST EDITION. Three volumes, 12mos (14.25 cm; 5 3/4") bound in recent half leather and marbled boards with gilt-stamped spine labels; 346, 322, 272 pp.; engraved plates, woodcuts. SCHWERDT Hunting, Hawking, Shooting Illustrated) II, p. 221; PADWICK Bibliography of Cricket 1211-3.

Scarce run of all three volumes (18 issues + 2 supplements) of this rare, short-lived magazine dedicated to all things sporting: pugilism, horse racing, fox-hunting, shooting, cricket, angling, "the golf," rowing, sailing, ratting, cockfighting, hawking, wrestling, archery, "pedestrianism", etc.

Complete with all 20 engraved plates (one folding, one colored), engraved title-pages and supplements for vols. I & II, as called for, and the only example we've come across of the rare contents page for the first issue (August 1823). First leaf of the index for vol. II supplied from another copy; some browning and spotting throughout, mild dust-soiling to the edges of the text block, otherwise sound in a handsome set of modern bindings. Bound without the supplementary "Barker's Delight" and "Complete Angler" reprints, as usual.

PLATES include portraits of pugilists Tom Cribb, John Jackson, Josh. Hudson, Tom Spring, etc.; Emma Freeman, the celebrated Female Pedestrian; 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; Lord Pelham's perilous Situation while Coursing near Porto Bello Gap, Sussex; View of the Contest for Dogget's Coat and Badge, on the First of August, 1823; etc., 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...").