Lot 245: SALVIN, Francis Henry (1817-1904) and William BRODERICK (1814-1888). Falconry in the British Isles . London: John van Voorst, 1855.

SALVIN, Francis Henry (1817-1904) and William BRODERICK (1814-1888). Falconry in the British Isles. London: John van Voorst, 1855.

4° (280 x 182mm). 24 lithographic plates by and after William Broderick, printed by Ford and West. (Neatly repaired tear to title-page, plates XI and XII bound as frontispiece and backed.) 20th-century red morocco gilt with original cloth upper cover and spine bound in, spine in compartments with green morocco gilt lettering-pieces, turn-ins with elaborate floral roll, beige silk endpapers. Provenance: G.V.R. (red morocco bookplate).

A FINE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION of "the best English book on falconry and a very attractive publication" (Schwerdt II, p.145). Twenty-one of the plates illustrate birds used for falconry in England, and, according to the authors' introduction "are in all cases where practicable taken from life, and are in several instances faithful portraits of living trained birds"; the remaining three plates illustrate hoods, jesses, bells and other hawking implements. "The best modern book in English on the art and practice of Falconry. The second edition [1873] is to be preferred for the emendations and additions to the text, but the illustrations to the first edition are much superior" (Harting Bibliotheca Accipitraria 67). Nissen IVB 147; Fine Bird Books p. 103; Zimmer p. 541.

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