From the library of 1st Viscount Cowdray. Charles James Apperley (1777-1843) was a Welsh sportsman and sporting writer, who following his marriage devoted himself to fox hunting. In 1821 he began to submit articles to The Sporting Magazine under the pseudonym of 'Nimrod' on horse races, hunt meets and other sporting events. These articles helped the magazine's circulation double in a few years, and as a result the then proprietor, Mr. Pitman, gave Apperley a handsome salary and picked up the expenses of his tours. Unfortunately, after Pitman's death the owners sued Apperley for the money that had been advanced to him, and in order to escape imprisonment Apperley fled to Calais were he made a living as a writer. His two most famous works The Life of a Sportsman and Memoris of the Life of John Mytton were illustrated by Henry Thomas Alken.

First, first, second, & third editions; 4 works in 5 volumes, 8vo, The Horse & The Hound with frontipiece, 4 plates, 6 full-page illustrations & further illustrations in the text, uniformly bound in red half morocco for Hatchards, gilt ornaments on spines, marbled boards with matching marbled endpapers, spines slightly sunned / darkened, scattered light foxing, particularly to endpapers, some light waterstaining to preliminaries of Nimrod Abroad vol. I, very light waterstain to margin of titlepage of Northern Tour; light waterstain to margin of final pages of The Horse & the Hound; none-the-less a very attractive set. xvi, 598; ix, [1], 285, vii, 306; [ii], 427, [1], [4](index];