Results 49 - 56 of 71 results

Backgammon: Its History and Practice - George Frederick Pardon, Kenny Meadows (illustrator)

1844 - D. Bogue, London - First Edition
A rare and superior first edition of this wonderfully illustrated little work on Backgammon. Surprisingly for a game that may have originated around 2,500 BC this is one of the earliest English treatise to focus on the game.

Quite comprehensive, the cheeky ‘
Punch’ style vignettes enhancing the more humorous anecdotes and quotes. The final chapter ‘Definition of Technicalities’ is not as dull as it sounds, for example -

“Covering your man to make sure of him” – A procedure to prevent your man being hit in the game – to ensure it in a duel.

“Gammon.” – A thing that abounds in many huge, old, smoky chimneys in the country, and in many well-ventilated public apartments in town’.

“High Doublets” – Twinned sixes or cinqs – frequent and highly ridiculous in operas, when melodious ladies enact truculent warriors.’
 
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Price HK$ 8,000



The Compleat Gentleman - Henry Peacham, Thomas Blount

1661 - Printed by E. Tyler, London - Third impression "
A superior example of one of the most important of all English courtesy books, with additional copper-engraved title page, 85 woodcut illustrations and ornamental headpieces.

The work for which Peacham (1576?-1643) will always be remembered. It was written for William Howard, Lord Arundel's youngest son, a boy of eight, to whom it is dedicated. The lad had not been Peacham's pupil; but they had met at Norwich, while the boy was a pupil of the bishop there. The book was suggested to him by M. de Ligny of Artois, who called Peacham's attention to the defective equipment of English youths in the matter of accomplishments. It is an interesting endeavour to encourage young men to devote themselves at once to the arts and athletic exercises.

A valuable survey is incidentally given of contemporary English efforts in science, art, and literature. A second impression, ‘much inlarged,’ appeared in 1626, and again in 1627, with an attractive chapter on fishing among other additions. This third edition of 1661, contained additional notes on blazonry by Thomas Blount (1618-1679); from this volume Dr. Johnson drew all the heraldic definitions in his dictionary’ [DNB].
 
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Price HK$ 9,000



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$ 3,000



1897 - A. D. Innes &, London - First Edition
A scarce first edition of this comprehensive work, obviously, published during the early years of the fashionable cycling boom, and illustrated throughout with full page photographic plates and charmingly witty vignettes.

Chapters include -
Of Cycles and Cycling; The Cycle in Society by Mrs. F. Harcourt Williamson; The Choice of a Machine; How to Keep a Machine in Good Order; Humours of Cycling by Gilbert Floyd; Pneumatic Tyres and the Methods of Repairing Them; How to Ride; Touring and the Tourist’s Outfit; Rides Round London by C.P. Sisley; Racing and Training; Clubs, Cycling Institutions and Literature Devoted to the Sport; Tandems, Multicycles, Machines of Peculiar Design and Motor Cycles; and How to Build a Bicycle.

‘A how-to book, in which the author described Wells’
The wheels of chance as “ludicrously accurate.” - Jamieson, Bicycle Travel and Touring Resources. 
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Price HK$ 2,500



Blow Ye Winds Heigh O! - A Yachting Story - A. Punt

Circa 1895 - Hunt &, London - First Edition Thus
With illustrations by C. A. Cox, and a rather pretty pictorial cover. Extremely scarce.

Covers a series of racing adventures in a fictional ten-ton cutter named ‘Nereid’, through Belfast, Galloway, the Clyde, and the Scottish Highlands. Originally a series of stories for a yachting magazine.
 
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Price HK$ 900



Annals of Cricket - W. W. Read

1896 - Sampson Low, London - First Edition - One of 250 copies
A classic account of the early history of the game and autobiography of the Surrey batsman (who scored 338 against Oxford University in 1888) and who played in 18 Tests for England.

Illustrated with portrait frontispiece and 25 black and white plates.
 
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Price HK$ 2,800



Humours of Golf - W. Heath Robinson

1923 - Methuen &, London - First Edition
Heath Robinson unleashes his considerable talent and imagination on the world of golf in this large quarto volume In the publisher’s wonderful original illustrated boards.

With an introduction by Heath Robinson’s
Country Life colleague, the great golf writer, Bernard Darwin. 
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Price HK$ 3,200



1923-6 - Charles Scribner's Sons, New York - The National Edition
A finely bound twenty volume set of Roosevelt’s works. With additional notes to the beginning of each volume, sometimes biographical sometimes Roosevelt’s own notes.

Roosevelt was an historian, a biographer, a statesman, a hunter, a naturalist, and an orator. His prodigious literary output includes twenty-six books, over a thousand magazine articles, thousands of speeches and letters. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906, in his position as President of the United States of America and collaborator of various peace treaties.
 
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Price HK$ 36,000



 
Results 49 - 56 of 71 results