by BECKFORD, Peter
London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Sons, 1820. Peter Beckford’s “Thoughts on Hunting”
In the Original Boards Uncut
BECKFORD, Peter. Thoughts on Hunting, in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend. London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Sons, [1820].
Octavo (9 x 5 5/8 inches; 229 x 143 mm.). xii, [1]- 321, [1, imprint] pp. Engraved frontispiece and folding plan "Elevation and Ground Plan of a Dog Kennel". Some leaves uncut. Bound in at the end are an 8 page and a 16 page publisher's catalog, together with a leaf (dated London 1824) "Interesting Works".
With four additional hand-colored plates from The Annals of Sporting and Fancy Gazette, loosely inserted between pp. 8/9; 35/35; 13/137; and 232/233.
Publisher's drab boards uncut. Spine with pictorial printed paper label "Beckford's/Thought/on/Hunting/14s Boards"
The label also has an engraving of a dog.
Chemised in a quarter red morocco over red cloth boards clamshell case by Root & Son, London. Spine with five raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments. Front board with slight crack, small repair? at top of spine, still an exceptionally fine example with the original spine label intact.
Loosely inserted is a hand written note: "This copy of Beckford/has 4 Aquatints by/Sutherland - inserted/loosely./from/"The Annals of Sporting".
The four additional hand colored plates:
1. "Fox Hunting (Plate 1) Hour of Meeting." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. Jan. 2, 1826.
2. "Fox Hunting (Plate 2) Broke cover - Settling to the Scent." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. Feb. 1, 1826.
3. "Fox Hunting (Plate 3) The Chase - Full Cry." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. April 1, 1826.
4. "Fox Hunting (Plate 4) Gone to Earth." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. June 1, 1826.
Peter Beckford (1739/40–1811), dog breeder and writer on hunting, “was the son of Julines Beckford (1717?–1764) of Steepleton Iwerne, Dorset…His grandfather was Peter Beckford (bap. 1643, d. 1710), sugar planter and lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, and William Beckford (d. 1770), lord mayor of London, was his uncle…Beckford's reputation rests largely on the two works he issued in 1781, Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting in a Series of Letters and Essays on Hunting: Containing a Philosophical Enquiry into the Nature of Scent. The former was a particularly popular work, and in 1798 Beckford successfully sued a publisher for issuing a pirated edition of it two years earlier. Beckford's works were remarkable because they detailed the grubby nitty-gritty of animal husbandry in a light, eloquent prose. Clearly an expert in every aspect of managing hunting animals, Beckford offered detailed advice on all aspects of animal welfare, specializing at various periods in the breeding of harriers, foxhounds, and buck-hounds. Almost a hundred years later his tips on various practical topics were quoted in D.P. Blaine’s authoritative An Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports (1870). For all his eloquence, however, his works were already proved to be somewhat out of date, on account of their discussion of an older, slower, form of hunting using harriers not foxhounds. In Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting he wrote: ‘the morning is the part of the day which generally affords the best scent; and the fox himself is, in such a case, then less able to run away from you…the whole aim of fox hunting being to keep the hounds well in blood, sport is but a secondary consideration.’ (p. 173) By contrast, adherents to a new system, introduced by Hugo Meynell and well established by the 1770s, started hunting at midday and pursued the fox for many hours, often at great speed. Ironically, it appears that many of the hounds from Meynell's famous Quorn pack were originally bred by Beckford, who sold them when he went on one of his extended foreign excursions” (ODNB).
Mellon/Podeschi 64 (describing the 1781 first edition). Schwerdt I, pp. 56-57 (describing the 1781, 1796, 1810, and 1820 editions). (Inventory #: 06230)
In the Original Boards Uncut
BECKFORD, Peter. Thoughts on Hunting, in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend. London: Printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Sons, [1820].
Octavo (9 x 5 5/8 inches; 229 x 143 mm.). xii, [1]- 321, [1, imprint] pp. Engraved frontispiece and folding plan "Elevation and Ground Plan of a Dog Kennel". Some leaves uncut. Bound in at the end are an 8 page and a 16 page publisher's catalog, together with a leaf (dated London 1824) "Interesting Works".
With four additional hand-colored plates from The Annals of Sporting and Fancy Gazette, loosely inserted between pp. 8/9; 35/35; 13/137; and 232/233.
Publisher's drab boards uncut. Spine with pictorial printed paper label "Beckford's/Thought/on/Hunting/14s Boards"
The label also has an engraving of a dog.
Chemised in a quarter red morocco over red cloth boards clamshell case by Root & Son, London. Spine with five raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments. Front board with slight crack, small repair? at top of spine, still an exceptionally fine example with the original spine label intact.
Loosely inserted is a hand written note: "This copy of Beckford/has 4 Aquatints by/Sutherland - inserted/loosely./from/"The Annals of Sporting".
The four additional hand colored plates:
1. "Fox Hunting (Plate 1) Hour of Meeting." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. Jan. 2, 1826.
2. "Fox Hunting (Plate 2) Broke cover - Settling to the Scent." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. Feb. 1, 1826.
3. "Fox Hunting (Plate 3) The Chase - Full Cry." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. April 1, 1826.
4. "Fox Hunting (Plate 4) Gone to Earth." Engraved by Sutherland after R.B. Davis. June 1, 1826.
Peter Beckford (1739/40–1811), dog breeder and writer on hunting, “was the son of Julines Beckford (1717?–1764) of Steepleton Iwerne, Dorset…His grandfather was Peter Beckford (bap. 1643, d. 1710), sugar planter and lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, and William Beckford (d. 1770), lord mayor of London, was his uncle…Beckford's reputation rests largely on the two works he issued in 1781, Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting in a Series of Letters and Essays on Hunting: Containing a Philosophical Enquiry into the Nature of Scent. The former was a particularly popular work, and in 1798 Beckford successfully sued a publisher for issuing a pirated edition of it two years earlier. Beckford's works were remarkable because they detailed the grubby nitty-gritty of animal husbandry in a light, eloquent prose. Clearly an expert in every aspect of managing hunting animals, Beckford offered detailed advice on all aspects of animal welfare, specializing at various periods in the breeding of harriers, foxhounds, and buck-hounds. Almost a hundred years later his tips on various practical topics were quoted in D.P. Blaine’s authoritative An Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports (1870). For all his eloquence, however, his works were already proved to be somewhat out of date, on account of their discussion of an older, slower, form of hunting using harriers not foxhounds. In Thoughts upon Hare and Fox Hunting he wrote: ‘the morning is the part of the day which generally affords the best scent; and the fox himself is, in such a case, then less able to run away from you…the whole aim of fox hunting being to keep the hounds well in blood, sport is but a secondary consideration.’ (p. 173) By contrast, adherents to a new system, introduced by Hugo Meynell and well established by the 1770s, started hunting at midday and pursued the fox for many hours, often at great speed. Ironically, it appears that many of the hounds from Meynell's famous Quorn pack were originally bred by Beckford, who sold them when he went on one of his extended foreign excursions” (ODNB).
Mellon/Podeschi 64 (describing the 1781 first edition). Schwerdt I, pp. 56-57 (describing the 1781, 1796, 1810, and 1820 editions). (Inventory #: 06230)
(818) 222-4103
