The Borders and Beyond - Abel Chapman

1924 - Gurney and Jackson, London - First Edition
A bright copy of this informative work of field exploration and natural history in Northumberland and the Anglo-Scottish borderlands.

Hunter-naturalist Chapman includes chapters on the British red grouse, the wildfowl of the north east coast, a search for the ‘moorland nymph’, salmonology, seagulls, woodcocks and herons, ravens, and the otter, together with a commentary on ‘modern zoology’, and extensive particulars on the migrations and plumage-phases in certain waders, to which he gave the name ‘Globe-Spanners’.

Profusely illustrated throughout with seventeen wonderful colour illustrations (on fourteen plates) by W.H. Riddell, twenty one black and white plates, two folding maps, and 170 sketches by the author.
 
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Price HK$ 1,000



Modern Development of the Dry Fly - Frederic M. Halford

1910 - George Routledge & Sons, London - Edition de Luxe, Number 3 of 75 copies. Signed by the author.
A classic work by the greatest proponent of the dry fly, signed by him and containing one complete volume of thirty three actual flies, dressed by Messrs. Hardy Bros. Ltd., and C. Farlow & Co., Ltd. in nine sunken mounts of thick card leaves.

This is number 3 of only 75 ‘Edition de Luxe’, two volumes in the publisher’s red calf and gilt bindings. In addiiont to the dry fly samples, there are nine colour plates of flies, eighteen colour charts, and sixteen mounted photogravures with tissue guards.

Housed in a later bespoke slipcase.
 
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Price HK$ 45,000



The Poetry of Sport - Hedley Peek (editor)

1896 - Longmans, London and Bombay - First Edition
‘Haste, ranger, to the Athol mountains blue! Unleash the hounds, and let the bugles sing! The thousand traces in the morning dew, the bounding deer,the black-cock on the wing, bespeak the rout of Scotland’s gallant king...from cairn of Bruar to the dark Glen-Morre, the forest’s in a howl, and all is wild uproar!’

A handsomely bound edition, with a distinctly Glaswegian accent, being bound in Glasgow and owned by the renowned medical Professor David Fyfe Anderson.

Containing a chapter on classical allusions to sport by Andrew Lang, and a lively preface to the Badminton Library by A.E.T Watson. Accompanied with illustrations by artists A. Thorburn, Lucien Davis, and C.E Brock, among others, this is a lovely compilation of poetry on the subject of sport for young men in the late eighteen-hundreds, primarily depicting activities such as fishing, hunting, and shooting.
 
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Price HK$ 2,000



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