[Fishing] Group of 4 Early English Angling Titles

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

1 (Cox, Nicholas)
The Gentleman's Recreation, In Four Parts; (viz.) Hunting, Fowling, Hawking, Fishing…
London: Printed by E. Flesher for Maurice Atkins and Nicolas Cox, 1674. First edition. 12mo. Illustrated with engraved frontispiece and three folding plates. Contemporary brown spotted calf; all edges trimmed; front and rear endpapers excised; bottom half of first free leaf excised, contemporary manuscript inscription on first free leaf; in custom brown box, stamped in gilt “Brooke Dolan 1940” on front panel. Sage, pp. 70-71; Westwood and Satchel, p. 67

2. Saunders, James
The Compleat Fisherman. Being A Large and Particular Account, of all the several Ways of Fishing now practised in Europe…
London: Printed for W. Mears, S. Tooke, and B. Motte, 1724. First edition. 12mo. Illustrated with folding engraved frontispiece. Contemporary brown calf, rebacked, stamped in blind and in gilt, all edges trimmed; front free endpaper loose. Sage, p. 181; Westwood and Satchel, p. 189

“Saunders is the first angling author who mentions silk worm gut." (Westwood and Satchel)

3. (Brooks, Richard)
The Art of Angling, Rock and Sea-Fishing…
London: Printed by and for John Watts, 1740. First edition. 12mo. Illustrated with numerous in-text illustrations. Three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, rebacked; top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed; marbled endpapers; Sage, p. 45; Westwood and Satchel, p. 42

4. Best, Thomas
A Concise Treatise On The Art Of Angling…
London: Printed for C. Stalker and H. Turpin, 1787. First edition. 12mo. Contemporary three-quarter brown speckled calf over marbled paper-covered boards, all edges trimmed and speckled. Sage, p. 29; Westwood and Satchel, p. 31

Condition varies.

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.