Memoirs of the Life of the Late John Mytton, Esq. of Halston, Shropshire

London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1837. A Most Valuable and Important Book"
Second and Enlarged Edition
With Additional Text and Six Extra Hand-Colored Plates

[ALKEN, Henry, illustrator]. NIMROD (pseud. of C.J. Apperley). Memoirs of the Life of the Late John Mytton, Esq. of Halston, Shropshire, Formerly M.P. for Shrewsbury, High sheriff for the Counties of Salup & Merioneth, and Major of the North Stropshire Yeomanry Cavalry. With Notices of His Hunting, Shooting, Driving, Racing, Eccentric and Extravagant Exploits By Nimrod. With Numerous Illustrations by H. Alken and T.J. Rawlins. London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1837.

Second (truncated) and enlarged edition, with additions to the text, six extra hand-colored plates and with three new plates replacing three from the first edition. Octavo (9 1/2 x 5 3/4 in; 241 x 146 mm). ix, [3], 206, [1, printer's slug], [1] pp. Additional engraved title in aquatint and eighteen hand-colored aquatint plates, including frontispiece, with tissue guards.

Publisher's original pictorially gilt green cloth, expertly recased. All edges gilt. With the ownership stamp of William K. Dick of Islip, Long Island (NY) to front pastedown endpaper. Some rubbing, a few bubbles to upper board cloth, soiling to endpapers. Hinges starting yet remain firm. Withal, a very good copy. Housed in a full crimson hard-grained morocco pull-off case by the Scroll Club Bindery of New York City.

"A most valuable and important book for the sporting life of the period, aptly described by Newton as 'a biography of a man that reads like a work of fiction'" (Tooley).

"This is not a work of fiction, for John Mytton, a rather inglorious character for a biography, was a hard-living, hard-drinking country squire of Halston, Shropshire, capable of the utmost physical endurance, and ready to accept any wager to walk, shoot or ride against any man. Many of his feats are recorded and graphically delineated, including the climax of his folly in setting his nightshirt on fire to cure a hiccough (Martin Hardie).

The Plates:
1. Well done, Neck or Nothing...
2. A Nick, or the nearest way home.
3. Wild Duck Shooting.
4. What! Never upset in a gig?
5. I wonder whether he is a good timber jumper!
6. The Meet with Lord Derby's Stag Hounds.
7. Stand and deliver.
8. Tally ho! Tally ho!...
9. The Oaks Filly.
10. Light come, light go.
11. On Baronet clears nine yards of water.
12. D--n this hiccup!
13. A h-ll of a row in a hell...
14. Swims the Severn at Uppington Ferry.
15. How to cross a country comfortably after dinner.
16. Heron shooting...
17. A Squire trap, by Jove!
18. Now for the honour of Shropshire.

At his death, industrialist and banker William K. Dick (1888-1953) was a director of Best Foods, Inc., president and director of the Dick Securities Corporation; and a director of Douglas Gibbons & Co., Inc.; the Eastern States Corporation; the Irving Trust Company, the National Sugar Refining Company, the Norwood and St. Lawrence Railroad, the St. Regis Paper Company, St. Regis Company, Ltd., of Canada, and the St. Regis Timber Company. His clubs included the Brook, Racquet and Tennis, Southside, National Golf Links, New York Yacht, and the Turf and Field.

Tooley 67. Schwerdt 1, p. 38. Abbey, Life, 385. Martin Hardie, pp. 185-186. Prideaux, p. 326. (Inventory #: 02540)