Books on the Horse and Horsemanship. Riding, Hunting, Breeding & Racing 1400-1941. A Catalogue.

Cloth, gilt cover device, 4to, xvii, 427 pp, nearly 400 ills, including 33 on 18 colour plates. 513 entries. A catalogue of the Paul Mellon Collection predominantly of British and American books , but including some early works in French, Italian and Latin, and a small number of periodicals. Includes full bibliographical descriptions with details of all illustrations. All pictorial title pages are reproduced, as are many other illustrations. From the Introduction : "This book is primarily a technical bibliography. It is in effect a physical history of English books on a luxury subject: the horse as an animal of noble recreation and delight. The focus is on the Thoroughbred horse, its antecedents, anatomy, physiology, breeding, training, and employment on the turf and in the field. On another level this catalogue is simply a record of the household library of a man who for many years has been riding and hunting, breeding horses and racing them. It is not a hoard of rarities. These books were acquired by Paul Mellon more for the ideas and images they contain than for their value to collectors." From the blurb: "The catalogue is devoted primarily to British publications, from The Book of Saint Albans to the books of Lionel Edwards. But, with historical propriety, the first entries are manuscripts from France and Italy. Following them is a manuscript in middle English of Twiti's Craft of Venery. Transcribed here in its entirety, it is the earliest extant text in English of England's oldest hunting treaisse. The catalogue finishes, true to the sporting book tradition of physical luxury, with the last publications of America's Derrydale Press In all there are 470 entries for books, chronologically arranged, followed by 43 entries for periodicals. The index analyzes the text and illnstrations in the catalogue from both equine and bibliographical perspectives. The mam subject headings there are anatomy and conformation, breeding, buying and judging, care and management, equitation, farriery, feeding, fox-hunting, hare-hunting, horse-racing, hounds, hunt equipment, hunting horses, huntsmen, hunt topography, jockeys, jumping, laws, pedigrees, polo, racehorses, stables and stable management, stag hunting, steeplechasing, training, and veterinary medicine.".