Five Hunting Classics from this Series

Foà, Édouard: After Big Game in Central Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989) A volume in the 'Peter Capstick Adventure Library', the series editor of which is Peter Hathaway Capstick. Translated from the French by Frederic Lees. 8vo; original black boards, lettered in gilt on spine; pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (x) + xxvii + (i) + 330, incl. index; plates; some photographs in text. Dustwrapper a little rubbed and edgeworn; light bump to top fore-corner of upper board; some foxing to edges and reverse of dustwrapper. Very good condition.

(Czech: Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785-1999, p. 98 [Adam & Charles Black edition of 1899]) "In less than four years Édouard Foà covered 7200 miles, mostly on foot - from the Zambezi delta on Africa's east coast to the mouth of the Congo on the west. He risked every form of tropical disease and death from dangerous game and the unreliability of early guns. Foà succeeded in his efforts to create for the Paris Museum one of the finest collections of African animals and plants in the world. His account is full of hard, almost fatally earned bush knowledge. Frederic Lees' able translation boosted this entertaining book to U.S. prominence (and two printings) in 1899."

Lyell, Denis D.: African Adventure: Letters from Famous Big-Game Hunters (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988) A volume in the Peter Capstick Library. 8vo; original blue boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xiii + (i) + 270, incl. index; plates. Spine very slightly cocked; trace of foxing. Very good condition.

"This represents an accumulation of letters spanning thirty years the author received from big game hunters including F. C. Selous; C. H. Stigand; R. J. Cunninghame; T. A. Barns; Martin Ryan; Alfred E. Pease; J. Stevenson-Hamilton; Leslie J. Tarlton; A. Blayney Percival; J. A. Hunter; A. L. Barnshaw; St. George Littledale; R. Pigot; J. G. Millais; Norman Smith; Abel Chapman; C. E. Radclyffe; Charles Sheldon; W. D. M. Bell; and J. Brander-Dunbar. Most of this correspondence deals with hunting in Africa especially, for the Big Five, and rifle choices for use in various international locales." - Kenneth Czech, writing of the first edition

Melliss, C. J.:Lion-Hunting in Somaliland. Also, an Account of "Pigsticking" the African Wart-hog (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991) A volume in the 'Peter Capstick Adventure Library', the series editor of which is Peter Hathaway Capstick.  8vo; original brown boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (xii) + 186; plates. Trace of foxing to edges, occasional fox spot elsewhere. Very good to near-fine condition.

(Czech: Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785-1999, p. 194 [Chapman & Hall 1895 edition]) 'Somaliland, today the Somali Democratic Republic, was once a favorite hunting ground for British officers stationed there or in Aden.  A captain in the 9th Bombay Infantry, C. J. Melliss was a pioneer of those professional soldiers of the Thin Red Line of Empire on Indian duty who found new areas of sport here.  Ranging well inland despite the risk of irregulars of the Mahdi ... Melliss was able to hunt lions and "pigstick" warthogs, replacing the Indian sports of tiger and wild boar hunting.  He tells in his book of a day long gone when gentlemen holding the King's commission could pit their rifles against lions in the most primitive of conditions, as well as try their hand at warthogs with a bamboo and steel lance.'

Patterson, J. H.: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986) A volume in the 'Peter Capstick Adventure Library', the series editor of which is Peter Hathaway Capstick. 8vo; original maroon boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (xii) + [vii-xx] + (ii) + 346; photographs; map. Dustwrapper very slightly edgeworn; some foxing to edges and to reverse of dustwrapper. Very good condition.

(Czech: Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785-1999, p. 213 [Original editions]) "Considered one of the greatest man-eating sagas of all time, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo is the firsthand account of the infamous Tsavo lions. These lions - who for nearly a year terrorized East Africa - succeeded in bringing the construction of a railway line to a complete halt, and have been credited with the deaths of some one hundred people. Written by the legendary officer who shot these lions and risked death several times in the attempt, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo is not only the story of this breathtaking hunt, but of Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson's other adventures in the African bush."

Stigand, C. H. Hunting the Elephant in Africa (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986) A volume in the 'Peter Capstick Adventure Library', the series editor of which is Peter Hathaway Capstick. Text facsimile of the Macmillan edition of 1913, excluding the chart which appeared in the original. Foreword by Theodore Roosevelt.  8vo; original blue boards, lettered in gilt on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. (x) + xv + (iii) + 379, incl. index; plates. Dustwrapper a bit edgeworn and rubbed, with tear to lower flap; some foxing to edges and reverse of dustwrapper. Very good, in a good dustwrapper.

(Czech: Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785-1999, p. 269 [Macmillan edition of 1913]) 'A preeminent elephant hunting title, this details Stigand's big game hunting efforts primarily in British East Africa, North Eastern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and the Lado Enclave.  He includes chapters on hunting rhinoceros, buffalo and lion, but relates his encounters with elephants with particular verve.  As he states in Chapter 1:  "There is something so fascinating and absorbing about elephant hunting that those who have done much of it can seldom take any interest again in any other form of sport." ' - Kenneth Czech, An Annotated Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books, 1785-1999