Books and Manuscripts

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

1. Scrope, William
Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing in the Tweed…
London: John Murray, 1843. First edition. 8vo. Illustrated with 13 plates, including three hand-colored. Publisher's pictorial green cloth, stamped in blind and in gilt; all edges untrimmed; ownership stamp of American financier Clarence H(ungerford). Mackay on front paste-down, armorial book-plate of Stephen George Holland on same; bookbinder's ticket on rear paste-down; in custom red box with “Brooke Dolan 1940” stamped in gilt on front panel. Sage, p. 183, Westwood and Satchell, p. 191

“I doubt if any volume on angling, since the Pickering ‘Walton’, of 1836, combines literary excellence with those of print and illustration in anything like the same degree of this work…” (The Ristigouche and its Salmon Fishing, Sage, p. 259)

2. (Fitzgibbon, Edward)
The Book of the Salmon: In Two Parts…
London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1850. First edition. 12mo. Illustrated with 8 hand-colored plates. Publisher's brown cloth, stamped in blind and in gilt; bookseller's blind stamp on front free endpaper; contemporary ownership signature on verso of same; Westwood and Satchell, p. 86

3. Nettle, Richard
The Salmon Fisheries of the St. Lawrence and Its Tributaries
Montreal: John Lovell, 1857. First edition. 12mo. Publisher's red cloth, stamped in blind and in gilt; fore-edge of some leaves chipped from being poorly opened, some affecting text. Sabin 52351, Westwood and Satchell, p. 270

Well-preserved copy of a scarce title.

4. Wells, Henry P. 
The American Salmon Fisherman
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886. First American edition. 12mo. Publisher's green cloth; all edges trimmed; in custom light-blue slip case and chemise, with “Brooke Dolan 1940” stamped in gilt on front panel. A fine copy.

5. Kelson, Geo(rge). M.  
The Salmon Fly: How to Dress It and How to Use It
London: Published by the Author, 1895. First edition. 4to. Illustrated with 8 color chromolithographic plates. Publisher's pictorial maroon cloth, stamped in black and in gilt; beveled edges; top edge gilt, other edges trimmed. Westwood and Satchell, p. 248 (supplement)

6. Calderwood, W(illiam). L. 
The Life of the Salmon…
London: Edward Arnold, 1907. First edition. 8vo. Publisher's pictorial blue cloth, stamped in blind and in gilt; all edges untrimmed.

7. Hewitt, Edward Ringwood 
Secrets of the Salmon
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922. First and limited edition, #236/780 numbered copies. 8vo. Publisher's quarter green cloth over light-green paper-covered boards; all edges untrimmed; old catalogue description mounted to front free endpaper; envelope with old fishing-related clippings laid in; in custom green slip-case and chemise with “Brooke Dolan 1940” stamped in gilt on front panel.

8. La Branche, George M.L.
The Salmon and the Dry Fly
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924. First and limited edition, #59/775 numbered copies. 8vo. Inscribed by author to Robert S. Winsmore on front free endpaper and dated August 1924: “Dear Bert-- Here is the book. Like it or not as you will - you must admire its beautiful dress. George M.L. LaBranche.” Publisher's quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards; all edges untrimmed;  in custom red box with “Brooke Dolan 1940” stamped in gilt on front panel.

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.