About this Item
Early, perhaps first, edition of this attractive atlas, the brainchild of the peripatetic map dealer William Colling Hobson, an obscure figure who struggled in the shadow of bankruptcy. It cleverly utilises lithographed versions of the Walkers' maps - originally published in Longman's British Atlas of 1837 - adding coloured stencils to identify the most notable hunts and black dots to mark their meeting places. None of the editions are dated, but Podeschi speculates that the earliest was issued in 1848. The ownership inscription in the present copy is dated 1852. Railways are featured, and this was the period of their rapid expansion, changing the face of the country and heralding the end of the age of coaching. It was also the age of the hugely popular sporting novelist Robert Smith Surtees, whose "sharp, authentic descriptions of the hunting field have retained their popularity among fox-hunters" (ODNB). Hobson appears to have led a precarious existence. In contemporary court reports, he is described as "late of the City of Dublin, but more late of Liverpool. Map-Seller, Horse Dealer, Dealer and Chapman". He published maps of Durham (1839) and Yorkshire (1843), but an ambitious map of Ireland on six sheets, dedicated to Queen Victoria, was assigned to Edward Holt after the copperplates were sold by auction at Sotheby's in 1837. From time-to-time, he was living in Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle, where in 1850 he is described as a "canvasser for maps". In 1851, as an an "insolvent debtor", he was up before the Lancashire county court. Provenance: Colonel James McDouall (1796-1872), of Logan, Wigtownshire, Inscribed on the front free endpaper verso: "Col: McDouall, 2nd. Life Gds., June, 1852". Educated at Christ's Hospital and Trinity College, Cambridge, McDouall entered the 2nd Life Guards in 1819 as a cornet, rising to become colonel from 1847 to 1854, when he retired. The McDouall Ranges, Northern Territory, Australia, are named in his honour. Podeschi/Mellon, Books on the Horse and Horsemanship, 181. The Jurist, Vol. 14, 1851. Quarto (359 x 237 mm). With 42 lithographic double-page maps hand-coloured in outline; letterpress title page and list of hunts. Original red half roan, spine gilt lettered direct in second and fifth compartments, gilt bands either side of raised bands, sides and corners edged with a gilt wavy roll, red morocco-grain cloth sides, title gilt to front cover within a foliate cartouche and with gilt vignettes of a running fox, riding crop and hunting horn, Nonpareil pattern marbled endpapers, sanguine speckled edges. Binding professionally refurbished, small stain to title page, scattered foxing and marginal finger soiling. A very good copy, presenting handsomely.
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