[Rarebooks] fa: BOXIANA or Sketches of Ancient & Modern Pugilism 1812 - Pierce Egan - FIRST EDITION

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, June 14. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/own7cm6

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


[Pierce Egan:] Boxiana; or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism; From the Days of the Renowned Broughton and Slack, to the Heroes of the Present Milling Aera! Dedicated to that Distinguished Patron of the Old English Sport, Captain Barclay. By One of the Fancy. London: Printed by and for G. Smeeton, 139, St. Martin's Lane, and sold by Sherwood, Neely and Jones, Paternoster Row, and all other booksellers, 1812. FIRST EDITION, first printing; 8vo (21.75 cm) in half calf and early marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; iv + 484 pp.; with the index, extra engraved title-page and twenty-one plates, four of which are folding (complete). Cohn 260.

A foundational work on boxing by one of the sports earliest and greatest chroniclers, Pierce Egan, who coined the term "the sweet science." Issued in twenty-one separate parts and then bound together, this volume formed the basis of a larger work with the same title, an additional volume being issued in 1818 (along with a reprint of the first volume)  and two more volumes from 1820-1824. This first volume is the only one to contain etchings (3) by George Cruikshank. Collated complete as per Cohn (though the plates are bound in different order, as often), with "much of the paper being of a bluish tint" and the numbers of the original parts "found at the left-hand bottom corner of the pages seriatim."

Binding with light rubbing, wear to the edges; generally modest age-toning to the leaves and plates with some offsetting to the folding plates, occasional small spots, light damp-stain to the fore-edges of a few early leaves, otherwise clean and sound, firmly bound. A superior copy of one of the seminal works of pugilistica. Front paste-down with the armorial bookplate of the Baron de Spon (1913-1998), noted book collector and editor of Burke's Peerage.