Beschreibung:

APPERLEY, Charles James (1778-1843)]. Memoirs of the Life of the late John Mytton ... with notices of his hunting, shooting, driving, racing, and extravagant exploits by Nimrod ... reprinted from the New Sporting Magazine. London: W. Spiers for Rudolph Ackermann 1835. 8° (208 x 132mm). 12 hand-coloured etched and aquatint plates, the design and etching by Henry Alken the aquatint by E. Duncan. (Some light marginal spotting.) Original brown grained cloth, blocked in gilt and blind (rebacked with original spine laid down), 20th-century four-fold cloth chemise, cloth slipcase. FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM. Apperley had been Mytton's neighbour in Shropshire, and both had lived together in Calais to avoid creditors. 'Apperley's task was to write the life of a man who, while he was one of the most heroic sportsmen that ever lived, was also drunken, diseased and insane, and he performed the task with admirable judgment' (see Cambridge History of English and American Literature , vol. XIV, 'The Victorian Age', pt. 2). Mellon/Podeschi 147; Schwerdt I, p.38; Tooley 66. [APPERLEY, C.J.]. The Chace, the Turf, and the Road by Nimrod. London: A . Spottiswoode for John Murray 1837. 8° (222 x 143mm). Engraved portrait frontispiece of the author by Edward Finden after Daniel Maclise 13 plates after Henry Alken 2 aquatint, 11 wood-engraved. 18pp. of publisher's advertisements at end. (Aquatints spotted.) Original green cloth, elaborately blocked in gilt and blind (spine faded and bumped). Provenance : Osman Ricardo (armorial bookplate). Fine copy of the uncoloured issue of the first edition. cf. Mellon/Podeschi 152; Schwerdt I,p. 36; and 3 others by Apperley: Remarks on the Condition of Hunters (1831) in 20th-century red half morocco; Nimrod's Huning Tours (1835) in original boards, boxed, both 8°; Sporting ... edited by Nimrod , (1838), large 4°, original cloth, with a loosely-inserted 3pp. als from Apperley to the publishers concerning the book. (5)