Books and Manuscripts

From the Sporting Library of American Adventurer, Naturalist, and Sportsman, Brooke Dolan II

[Bewick, Thomas, and Thomas Gosden, et al.]
Group of 19 Angling-Themed Book-Plates
Places and dates vary. Collection of 17 engraved book-plates: 11 featuring designs by English engraver Thomas Bewick; three from the library of English bookbinder and sportsman Thomas Gosden; one from the library of Izaak Walton bibliographer Thomas Satchell; and two others. Sizes vary. Most mounted to larger sheets with printed labels or descriptions. Condition varies, generally fine. All housed within a custom red cloth chemise, stamped in gilt “Brooke Dolan 1940” on front panel. Lot also includes A Catalogue of an Exhibition of Angling Book Plates forming the collection of Daniel B. Fearing, Newport, R.I. From the sporting library of American adventurer, naturalist, and sportsman, Brooke Dolan II.

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.