Books and Manuscripts

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

1. Observations on a Salmon River
(Norwood, Massachusetts): Privately Printed, 1921. First edition. 12mo. Inscribed by the author on front fly leaf “Lucy from Frank. 1921.” Publisher's green cloth, stamped in gilt; top edge gilt, other edges trimmed; book-plate of renowned American sporting collector William Mitchell Van Winkle on front paste-down. 

2. Fish Facts and Fancies
New York and London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926. First edition, one of 1,000 copies. 8vo. Publishers' quarter green cloth over green paper-covered boards; all edges untrimmed; in scarce original light green dust-jacket; in custom green slip case and chemise, stamped in gilt “Brooke Dolan 1940” on front panel. 

3. A Salmon River
New York: Dutton's, 1928. First edition, one of 250 copies. 8vo. Publisher's full green limp straight-grain morocco; top edge gilt, other edges untrimmed; in custom green slip case and chemise, stamped in gilt “Brooke Dolan 1940” on front panel. 

4. The Life-History of the Atlantic and Pacific Salmon of Canada
New York: Duttons, Inc. 1930. First edition. 8vo. Publishers' quarter green cloth over green paper-covered boards; top edge gilt, other edges trimmed; in original glassine dust-jacket; in custom green slip case and chemise, stamped in girt “Brooke Dolan 1940” on front panel. Additionally by R.D. Hume. 

All copies near fine.

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.