A Short Treatise on that Useful Invention Called the Sportsman’s Friend; or The Farmer’s Footman

A Gentleman Farmer, of Northumberland [Henry Utrick Reay], Joseph Atkinson, Thomas Bewick

Newcastle

:

Edward Walker

,

1801

.
First Edition.

19cm x 12.5cm. [ii], 24 pages, 3 plates. Side-stitched marbled papered wrappers

By A Gentleman Farmer, of Northumberland [Henry Utrick Reay]; With figures of the Instrument and its Use, Engraved on Wood, by Thomas Bewick, from the Paintings of Joseph Atkinson. The instrument being a simple notched peg for securing the reins of a horse to the ground. With 3 plates showing horses and being fine and sizely examples of Bewick’s work. Scarce, with abounding bookseller tales: Reay, after receiving criticism, withdrawing the work and having the remaining copies destroyed (though this has been questioned as possible sales puff on the part of the Newcastle bookseller William Garret), Jane Bewick claiming her father both drew and engraved the illustrations (though this is noted as unlikely). Nonetheless, with only 300 copies originally printed, and languished or abandoned whether by one tale, mishap, or another, this pamphlet is one of the more difficult of Bewickana to obtain. TB 2.594. This copy with the ownership signature of Matthew Bigge, the Bigge family being one of Queensland’s early squatting families. In 1933 Matthew married the granddaughter of Queensland premier Sir Samuel Griffith.

Rebound in marbled wrappers. Tanning to recto of first preliminary leaf. Minor edge wear and a corner crease to the tail fore-edge corner of one leaf. Very Good Condition.