Sporting Anecdotes, Being Anecdotal Annals, Descriptions, Tales and Incidents, by "Ellangowan", 1889
An entertaining and wide-ranging collection of nineteenth-century sporting anecdotes by the Scottish journalist and author James Glass Bertram (1824-1892), writing under his sporting pseudonym "Ellangowan". Bertram was an experienced writer on angling and field sports, and took the name Ellangowan from the fictional Scottish estate in Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering. Here he brings together stories, incidents and curiosities from the worlds of horse-racing and betting, pugilism, fox-hunting, angling and shooting, alongside the rather less respectable pursuits of gambling, card-playing, cock-fighting and pedestrianism. Combining accounts of celebrated sportsmen and notable contests with remarkable wagers, eccentric characters and humorous episodes, the book provides a lively picture of British sporting and gambling culture during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Published in 1889, this is the uncommon first edition, now sparsely represented in institutional collections.
Sporting Anecdotes, Being Anecdotal Annals, Descriptions, Tales and Incidents, of Horse-Racing, Betting, Card-Playing, Pugilism, Gambling, Cock-Fighting, Pedestrianism, Fox-Hunting, Angling, Shooting and Other Sports. Now First Collected and Edited by "Ellangowan".
Published by Hamilton, Adams & Co, London, and Thomas D. Morison, Glasgow. Published in 1889, this is a scarce first edition, with WorldCat recording only two institutional holdings of the printed book, one of which is the British Library.
A very good hardback volume, with dark blue grained morocco leather spine and corners (a little sunned to spine). The boards with marbled paper with gilt metallic rules. Spines with raised bands and gilt titles, and tooled gilt sporting motif to lower compartment. Covers with light wear and some rubbing to spines. Soundly bound.
With marbled endpapers, matching covers. Text pages are bright and clean with shiny gilt top edge. With the armorial bookplate of Henry Plews, bearing the motto "Unita Fortior", to the front pastedown. This would appear very probably to be Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Plews (1836-1918), the Yorkshire-born railway executive who became General Manager of the Great Northern Railway (Ireland), and later a director of the company. Plews had a long association with Irish railways, his career dating from 1866, and also served in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps. A later presentation inscription to the first blank is dated 1946, and has a 2cm marginal edge tear.
Text in English.
352pp.
Dimensions: approximately 205mm high x 145mm wide x 29mm deep.
Weight: approximately 714g (unpacked).