Books and Manuscripts

Elliott, W(illia)m.
Carolina Sports, by Land and Water; Including Incidents of Devil-Fishing, &c.
Charleston: Burges and James, 1846. First edition. 8vo. 172 pp. From the sporting library of American adventurer, naturalist, and sportsman, Brooke Dolan II. Publisher's black cloth-covered boards, stamped in gilt; all edges trimmed; illustrated book-plate of sporting collector William Mitchell Van Winkle on front paste-down; light foxing to text, heavier from pp. 135-152; faint tidemark in top corner of prelims; very small stain in top corner of some leaves at rear; in black cloth slip case and chemise. Westwood & Satchell p. 85 (later editions); Howes E-112; Sabin 22286

Lot includes a second edition of the same (New York: Trehern & Williamson, 1850), in publisher's red cloth. 

A fine and rare first edition in original cloth of this landmark antebellum sporting classic. Elliott (1788-1863) was a South Carolina politician, cotton and rice planter, avid sportsman, and author. Several of the essays featured within originally appeared in American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, and recount Elliott's own exploits hunting bear, deer, wild-cat, bass, drum-fish, and devil-fish--a type of giant stingray hunted with a harpoon that Elliott claimed to be the first to ever successfully hunt. This book proved to be very popular, going through numerous editions, and was claimed by Theodore Roosevelt--who also hunted devil-fish--as one of his favorites.

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.