Felix on the Bat; Being A Scientific Inquiry into the Use of the Cricket Bat; Together with the History and Use of the Catapulta. Also, the Laws of Cricket, as revised by the Marylebone Club 1845. [*Together with an AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED from the author containing an original ink sketch]

London: Baily Brothers, Cornhill, 1845. First edition. Small 4to (measures 7.7 x 9.7 inches approx.). [ii],39,[1]pp.,+[2]pp. (addenda leaf; verso blank),+[6]pp. publisher's advertisements. With hand-coloured frontispiece & six hand-coloured lithographic plates, three black-and-white plates (two of these lithographed), & eight black-and-white textual vignettes. Original green straight-grained cloth, gilt lettering, gilt- & blind-decoration, all edges gilt, sometime expertly rebacked in similar style, spine unlettered, with strip of later paper to inner margins of endpapers as part of the reback, original endpapers otherwise preserved. Binder's ticket of Remnant & Edmonds to foot of last pastedown. Some old marking & small stains to covers, not too obtrusive. Some light soiling to page edges internally- clear of images - and the odd finger-mark. Slight browning to versos of plates, and to endpapers. Old stain to top edge of Leg Half Volley plate (facing p.26). A generally very good copy. §Loosely inserted is an Autograph Letter Signed, single leaf folded (sometime lightly folded again into four), composed on three sides - on mourning stationery - from the author (signing himself N Wanostrocht Felix) to one H.W.(?) Bartlett of Bridport, Dorsetshire, undated (c.1845-1860?). Letter includes an original ink drawing by Wanostrocht. The contents, in a crabbed period hand, discerned as follows: " My dear Sir - Here I am painting away like mad - Will you oblige me by asking Mr Maguire (whose beautiful drawings upon the stone I have seen) -, to write to me and say what he would charge me for putting a head on the stone - The head 3 inches long with corresponding figure, as per fly leaf [last four words seemingly an afterthought, apparently clarifying that the 'corresponding figure' on the 'fly leaf' (sic) is that depicted in the ink drawing] These things are often happening to me + so I hope that as a brother traveller he will allow us both to get any good feelings out of the matter - Perhaps he will also let me know the cost of printing 50 copies - Believe me in haste and with my apology for giving you the troubles[?] Yours very truly, N Wanostrocht Felix ". The recipient, H.W.(?) Bartlett, has not been identified. Mr. Maguire is almost certainly Thomas Herbert Maguire (1821-1895), Irish-born lithographer to Queen Victoria. The 'stone' mentioned in the letter is mysterious but - despite the mourning stationery - seems to refer to the lithographer's stone rather than a headstone. The letter is in very good condition. …