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Travers' Golf Book - Jerome D. Travers

1913 - The Macmillan Company, New York - First Edition
A fine first edition of the first book by this golfing legend, illustrated with a colour frontispiece and 46 black and white photographic plates. A combination of autobiography and instructional.

‘Although he was of slight stature, Travers dominated golf in the decade before World War I with his stunning iron shots and expert putting. He won many tournaments because of his calm temperament, patience, and ability to make precise shots. He won the United States Amateur in 1907, 1908, 1912, and 1913, and was runner-up in 1914. His victory in 1913 set a record for that tournament – not broken until Bobby Jones won it five times. He was among the first members of the Golf Hall of Fame established by the United States Golf Association’. [DAB]

‘Some of the words used to describe Jerry Travers have not been kind – cold, somber, ruthless – yet these were the qualities that made him the most feared golfer of his time. In a nine-year stretch from 1906-1915, Travers won four U.S. Amateurs, five Metropolitan Amateurs and a U.S. Open. Only Bob Jones won more amateur titles and Travers was one of only five amateurs to win the Open. And his battles with Walter Travis, in the words of Herbert Warren Wind, “
formed the crucible in which a talented young golfer was made into the greatest match player of his decade”‘. [World Golf Hall of Fame]

And in 1915 at the age of 28, Travers ended his championship career.
 
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Price HK$ 7,000



1861 - Henry G. Bohn, London - The Second Jesse Edition
A finely bound copy of one of the most profusely illustrated editions, the second to be edited by Edward Jesse. According to Oliver, ‘this edition has been criticized as having been somewhat too fully annotated and illustrated, but the illustrations, in our opinion, add as much to the charm of the book, as the notes do to its interest’.

‘Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries,
" Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did ";
and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling
.’

The most enduring distinction of the
Complete Angler is the one cast off by its subtitle The Contemplative Man's Recreation with its graceful evocations of a life free from hurly-burly in the company of friends intent on physical and moral sustenance. The range of perspectives that Walton brings to bear on his rural descriptions embrace literature, poetry, music and anecdote. 
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Price HK$ 9,500



The Complete Angler or Contemplative Man's Recreation, Being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-ponds, Fish, and Fishing - Izaak Walton, Charles Cotton, Sir John Hawkins, J. E. Harting

1893 - Samuel Bagster and Sons, London - The Harting Edition. Tercentenary Edition. No. 300 of 350 copies.
‘Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries,
" Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did ";
and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling
.’

A finely bound two volume set of the Harting Edition. With 54 illustrations and additional vignettes, and embellishments after John Linnell, G. E. Lodge, Huysman, Alexander, Wale, Samuel, and Percy Thomas, engraved by Audinet, Hayter, and Greig.

‘Edited from a Naturalist point of view’ by J. E. Harting, librarian of the Linnaen Society of London. The date of the founding of the Bagster publishing house was April 19,1794, and this profusely illustrated edition, limited to 350 numbered copies, was partly intended to commemorate the event. Included is an abridgement of the Lives of the Authors by Sir John Hawkins

It breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of the heart. There are many choice old verses interspersed in it; it would sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it’ - Charles Lamb in his letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The most enduring distinction of the
Complete Angler is the one cast off by its subtitle The Contemplative Man's Recreation with its graceful evocations of a life free from hurly-burly in the company of friends intent on physical and moral sustenance. The range of perspectives that Walton brings to bear on his rural descriptions embrace literature, poetry, music and anecdote. 
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Price HK$ 10,000



The Cricket Bat and How to Use It. - Nicholas Wanostrocht Felix An Old Cricketer

1863 - Houlston and Wright, London - First Edition, Second Issue
A pretty example of this early and important work by the great ‘Felix’, rare in the original gilt cloth boards.

In the words of the famous elegy, best loved of Bernard Darwin:-

And with five such mighty cricketers 'twas but natural to win
As Felix, Wenman, Hillyer, Fuller Pilch and Alfred Mynn.

Nicholas ‘Felix’ Wanostrocht (1804-76) was a noted English amateur (’Gentleman’) cricketer, a classical scholar, musician, linguist, inventor, writer and artist. When his father died in 1824 he had inherited the running of his school, aged only nineteen, and he was afraid that the parents of pupils might think that cricket was too frivolous a pastime for a schoolmaster, so he played under the name of ‘Felix’. A specialist left-handed batsman, though he did occasionally bowl underarm slow left-arm orthodox, Felix was a mainstay of the great Kent team of the mid-19th century alongside such players as Alfred Mynn, Fuller Pilch, William Hillyer and Ned Wenman.
 
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Price HK$ 4,000



1912Carlisle - First Edition
Pre-dating Bear Bryant and Bobby Bowden, Glenn Scobey ‘Pop’ Warner had the most wins of any coach in major college football history (319–106–32). Warner was the innovator behind the single-wing formation, a precursor to the modern spread and shotgun formations. Warner coached four teams to national championships: in 1915, 1916, and 1918 with Pittsburgh and in 1926 with Stanford. He was inducted as a coach into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951.

The plan of teaching football by mail was suggested to me several years ago by the fact that there seemed to be no means available by which a student of the game could obtain instruction except by putting himself under the supervision of professional coaches upon the field of play . . . The course has not been prepared for the general public but is strictly a text book for players and for those whose business or pleasure it may be to instruct players and teams.‘ – From the preface.

A bright and clean copy of this early work, profusely illustrated with photographic figures and drawn diagrams of equipment, technique, and strategy. There is a frontispiece photograph of the author.
 
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Price HK$ 3,500



Exploration of Mount Kina Balu, North Borneo - John Whitehead

1893 - Gurney and Jackson, London - First Edition
A beautiful copy of this stunningly illustrated and unsurpassed large folio containing 32 lithographed plates, comprising 11 natural history plates, hand-coloured and heightened with gum arabic, and 21 tinted lithographed views and ethnographic subjects, and with map and an additional 21 woodcut illustrations in the text.

A detailed narrative of John Whitehead's (1860-1899) travels from October 1884 to August 1888 in Borneo, Java, Palawan and Balabac Islands, especially of his three efforts (the last one successful) to ascend Mount Kina Balu. He brought back examples of many new animals, including no fewer than forty-five new species of birds. The author's primary interest was ornithology, but he also provides much information on head-hunting, religion and custom of the peoples of the region. Besides visiting North Borneo he spent several months in Java and Palawan, and made an expedition into the state of Malacca.
 
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Price HK$ 40,000



The Life of Izaak Walton; including Notices of his Contemporaries - Thomas Zouch

1826 - Thomas Gosden, London - First Gosden Edition
A charmingly bound Gosden edition of Zouch’s ‘Life of Izaak Walton’, first published in 1790, and later illustrated here with eighteen engraved plates which where also used for Thomas Gosden’s 1822 edition of the ‘Compleat Angler’. 
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Price HK$ 2,000



 
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