Books and Manuscripts

From The Sporting Library Of American Adventurer, Naturalist, and Sportsman, Brooke Dolan II

1. The Complete Angler…
London: Printed for Samuel Bagster by R. Watts, 1815. Second Bagster edition. 8vo. Publisher's quarter grey paper over grey paper-covered boards, rebacked with original spine label laid down; all edges untrimmed; book-plate of the Reverend Francis Harison on front paste-down; in brown cloth-covered fall-down-back box. Coigney 21

2. The Complete Angler…
London: D. Bogue and H. Wix, 1844. Fourth edition (sixth Major edition). Large paper edition. 8vo. Edited by John Major. Illustrated. Publisher's brown pictorial cloth, stamped in blind and in gilt. Coigney 56

3. The Complete Angler…
New York and London: Wiley & Putnam, 1847. First Bethune edition. Two parts in one volume. 8vo. Publisher's brown pictorial cloth, decorated in gilt; all edges gilt; book-plate of American sporting collector William Mitchell Van Winkle on front paste-down. Coigney 61

“The first Angler edited, published, and printed in America.” (Coigney)

4. The Complete Angler…
New York: The Baker & Taylor Company, (1885). Second Baker and Taylor facsimile edition. 12mo. A photographic reproduction of the 1653 first edition. Publisher's dark brown and tan paper-covered boards; top edge gilt; Coigney 125

5. The Complete Angler…
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, (1888). In two volumes. Seventh Bethune edition. 8vo. Publisher's green pictorial cloth, stamped in dark green and in gilt; top edges gilt, other edges trimmed; Coigney 137

6. The Compleat Angler...
London: Sampson Low, Marston, et al., 1888. In two volumes. Demy Quarto Edition. Lea and Dove (first Marston) Edition, #164/500 numbered copies signed by the publisher. Profusely illustrated. Publisher's quarter white linen over gray paper-covered boards, original spine labels; all edges untrimmed; largely unopened. Coigney 139

7. The Complete Angler…
Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1891. In two volumes. Third Lowell Edition. 8vo. Illustrated. Publisher's blue cloth, stamped in gilt; top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. Coigney 154

8. The Compleat Angler…
(Cambridge, Massachusetts): The Riverside Press, 1909. The Riverside Press edition. #7/440 numbered copies. 12mo. Publisher's brown mottled paper-covered boards, all edges untrimmed; in original black paper-covered slip case with spine label. Coigney 248

Lot also includes six Angler/Walton-related titles:

1. Burnand, F.C. The Incompleat Angler. London, 1887. Illustrated by Harry Furniss.
2. Craven, Arthur Scott, and J.D. Beresford. The Compleat Angler A Duologue. New York and London, no date. First published in 1915.
3. Lang, Andrew. The Tercentenary of Izaak Walton. London, 1893. "The impression of this book is limited to a few copies for private circulation only.”
4. Marston, R.B. Walton and Some Earlier Writers on Fish and Fishing. London, 1894.
5. Shepherd, Richard Herne. Waltoniana Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton. London, 1878. Book-plate of marine biologist Charles Atwood Kofoid on front paste-down.
6. Westwood, Thomas. The Chronicle of the ‘Compleat Angler’… London, 1864. Book-plate of John Whitefoord Mackenzie.

Condition varies. Lot sold with all faults. 

Brooke Dolan II (1908-45) was an American adventurer, naturalist, sportsman, and book collector. Educated at Harvard University and Princeton University, he later became a trustee of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. During the 1930s he led two notable expeditions to China and Tibet, collecting numerous specimens that he sent back for the Academy's collection. In 1942, during World War II, he was recruited to serve in the OSS (precursor of the CIA) and traveled to Lhasa with Ilya Tolstoy (grandson of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy), searching for supply routes to China for the Allied Forces. During this time they established contact with the Tibetan government and met the seven-year-old 14th Dalai Lama--the first Americans to ever do so. He then joined the Army Air Forces, and the United States Military Observer Group in Western China, behind Japanese lines near Mao’s headquarters. He died in 1945.