ALKEN, Henry (1784-1851). The National Sports of Great Britain, with Descriptions in English and French. London: Thomas McLean, 1820-21.

2° (475 x 315mm). Hand-coloured aquatint additional title, 50 hand-coloured plates after Henry Alken. (Occasional marginal spotting, text with occasional light offsetting.) Contemporary blue straight-grain morocco, sides panelled with blind- and gilt-tooled borders, spine gilt in compartments, two of these decorated with a stag, gilt edges (extremities and joints rubbed). Provenance: Fitz Eugene Dixon (bookplate; his sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, 6 January 1937, lot 26, $1,825 (£365)).

DIXON COPY, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE WITH THE COLOURED TITLE PAGE DATED 1820. ALKEN'S MOST IMPORTANT WORK, AND ONE OF THE GREAT 19TH-CENTURY COLOUR-PLATE BOOKS, with 'aquatints of exceptional quality considered by many to be Alken's greatest achievement and one of Britain's finest sporting books' (Litchfield). 'It must always form the cornerstone of Alken collection' (Tooley). The first issue additional title is dated 1820. The Dixon catalogue argued that the binding could well have been by Thomas Gosden or certainly in the manner of Thomas Gosden. Litchfield 14; Mellon/Podeschi 111; Schwerdt I, p.19; Tooley 41.

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