first edition Hardcover
1939 · New York
by O'Connor, Jack
New York: Derrydale Press, 1939. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Quarto (25.5 cm), pp. xx, [ii], 298. Faux green snakeskin boards, with gilt-stamped titling. #706 of 950 copies printed. Deckle edge, complete with all black and white photos, color frontispiece and plates by illustrator TJ Harter. Text block has foxing, spine is faded with edge wear, splatter marks on p. 67 and facing plate. Former owner's name on first blank leaf. Absent the box it was published with [Biscotti, p. 320].An Arizona native and long-time celebrated shooting editor at Outside Life, O'Connor "was literate, sardonic, and understated, the only 'gun writer' ever reviewed in The New Yorker," Stephen Bodio writes in A Sportsman's Library, about a later version of the book. "[T]his handsome, entertaining, still-useful volume had been perhaps the most important book for introducing the literate American hunter to the modern, post-Teddy Roosevelt West."
(Inventory #: 29871)