Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
William Somervile. The Chace. London G Hawkins 1735, 1735.
Price: US$41.87 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: A rare First Edition. Contemporary marbled paper boards with tan calf spine. All very worn indeed. No title label. Edges are bumped. Internally the binding is tight. Pages are age tanned with occasional slight foxing. Various signatures of previous owners, the first dated 1753 and a fine book plate of the Fly Fishers Club who were given the volume by a previous owner with his compliments. A small pasted label on the fep numbers it as 50. A further 18thC signature on the rear flyleaf. A few pencilled anotations. The Chace was very popular at the time and went through many editions. The four cantos cover different aspects of fox hunting.
Seller: Reader's Books, Petworth, United Kingdom
Price: US$83.74 + shipping
Description: 8vo, pp. [xx], 131; a little spotting at beginning and end, else an excellent copy, uncut in recent half calf and marbled boards. First octavo edition: the quarto had appeared a month earlier. For this printing the Bowyer Ledgers indicate a press run of 1000 copies. There is also an entry, about two weeks later, for two cancelled leaves, which Foxon identifies as A7-8, noting that in most copies A8 has the press figure 8. The reason for the cancellation was that in the commendatory poem by John Nixon beginning on the recto of A7, the second line had inadvertently been omitted; in this copy the leaves have not been cancelled, the line is missing, and there is no press figure. Foxon S563; Bowyer Ledgers 2170.
Seller: Christopher Edwards ABA ILAB, Henley-on-Thames, OXON, United Kingdom
Somervile, William. The Chace. G Hawkins, London, 1735.
Price: US$85.00 + shipping
Description: There were four editions in the first year of its publication - and this one is probably the third, issued without a frontispiece. A 1981 letter from the distinguished bookseller John Howell Books in San Francisco says it is the First Edition, but that is incorrect. Nicely bound, and with the bookplate of Alfred Sutro - local lawyer and bibliophile.
Seller: Recycled, Corte Madera, CA, U.S.A.
William Somervile. The Chace William Somervile. G Hawkins, London, 1735.
Price: US$115.94 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: A very bright copy of William Somervile's best known poem 'The Chace'. The third edition, disbound as issued.This pioneering poem was an early English georgic.With the signaturesA-I8, K4 as called for.Collated, complete.The ESTC notes that 1500 copies of this edition was published. Issued the same year as the first edition.ESTC reference No T30392.An excellent, bright copy of this poem. Disbound, as issued. Externally, excellent with minor shelfwear. Internally, firmly bound. Prior owner's inscription to A5, identifying the lPages are very bright and clean. Fine
Seller: Rooke Books PBFA, Bath, United Kingdom
Somervile, William. THE CHACE, A Poem. G. Hawkins, London, 1735.
Price: US$120.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Third edition, MDCCXXXV, printed for G. Hawkins and sold by T. Cooper. 18 + 131 Pages. Full leather binding, tooled & decorated, 5 raised bands. Cover is quite worn & scuffed, corners bumped. There is a tiny ink 'tick' mark on the front pastedown, along with a bookplate of 'James Remington'. The blank fly sheet is loose at the top half & the two blank sheets at the back have a tiny piece missing from the top corner. There is some colour transfer from the cover to the top edge of the first few pages, otherwise the contents are clean & are tight in the binding. A very nice copy of this tribute to fox hunting. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall
Seller: B A Downie Dog Books, Victoria, BC, Canada
SOMERVILE William 1675-1742. The Chace. A Poem.. G Hawkins, London, 1735.
Price: US$161.03 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: VG, 1st ed, 1735. In modern dark brown quarter leather with brown cloth, some gilt tooling. Spine has raised bands, gilt tooling, title in gilt to maroon leather label. Internally, new grey endpapers, paper repairs to fep, blank pages are a little soiled, title page has ink name of Wm Vaughn, May 13, 1735 to head (Sir William Vaughn of Voyle, Merioneth, 1st high Sheriff of Brecknockshire in 1735, brother of Robert Vaughn of Hengwrt), [12], 106 pp, [1] errata, lacks frontis, text block edges uncut. Printed by William Bowyer; his records show 750 copies printed. (278*210 mm). A nice copy of an important and much copied poem. (ESTC T30391. Somervile [Somerville], poet, whose major poem was The Chace, published in 1735 and dedicated to Frederick, prince of Wales. In four books of blank verse he conveyed the excitement and dangers of the chase as well as its place in history. Somervile was 50 before he published any of his work! and this was his best.
Seller: Madoc Books (ABA-ILAB), Llandudno, CONWY, United Kingdom
Somervile, William. The Chace a Poem. Printed for G. Hawkins and Sold By T. Cooper, London, 1735.
Price: US$206.12 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Original Calf Covers Which Are Both Off. Gilt Titles On Brown To Spine.Inscription About Book Dated 1737 On Ffep. O/W Internally Book Is Very Clean With No Marks Of Foxing.
Seller: Valuable Volumes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom
Price: US$257.65 + shipping
Description: 4to, engraved frontispiece and pp. [xii], 106, [1] errata; part-title (B1) misbound among the prelims, else a decent copy, rebound in modern quarter calf, spine lettered in gilt. First edition: one of the most famous and frequently reprinted poems on hunting. The prey include deer, hares, foxes, and even otters; much attention is given to horses and hounds. Johnson acknowledged the importance of the poem, with reservations: His great work is his Chace, which he undertook in his maturer age, when his ear was improved to the approbation of blank verse, of which however his two first lines give a bad specimen. To this poem praise cannot be totally denied. He is allowed by sportsmen to write with great intelligence of his subject, which is the first requisite to excellence; and though it is impossible to interest the common readers of verse in the dangers or pleasures of the chase, he has done all that transition and variety could easily effect; and has, with great propriety, enlarged his plan by the modes of hunting used in other countries. The opening lines do in fact fall flat: 'The Chace I sing, Hounds, and their various Breed, And no less various Use '. The frontispiece is engraved by G. Scotin after a design by Gravelot. The Bowyer Ledgers record that 750 copies were printed. Foxon S562; Hayward 158; Rothschild 1932. For a good account of what the relevant entries reveal about the actual printing, particularly with regard to the use of press figures, see J. D. Fleeman, 'William Somervile's 'The Chace', 1735', in PBSA Vol. 58 (1964 [not 1966, as Foxon has it]), pp. 1-8.
Seller: Christopher Edwards ABA ILAB, Henley-on-Thames, OXON, United Kingdom
SOMERVILE, William. The Chace. Hawkins, London, 1735.
Price: US$300.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: A Poem. Frontis. 106pp. + errata. 4to, contemporary calf; (spine worn, front cover detached , scattered light foxing). London: G. Hawkins and T. Cooper, 1735. Good (+). "It (this work) contains a vivid description of his (Somervile's) favourite pastime and some lively pictures of animal life. It has always been held in high esteem by sportsmen, and many editions of have been published." DNB, XVIII, p. 665. Lowndes III, p. 2441.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$12480.00 + shipping
Description: 263 x 207 mm. (10 1/4 x 8 1/8"). 6 p.l., 106 pp., [1] leaf (errata). SUPERB OLIVE GREEN CRUSHED MOROCCO BY RIVIERE & SON (stamp-signed on front turn-in), cover with lettered central panel surrounded by four onlaid sections of darker green morocco, outer frame of leafy vines emanating from the tips of the fan-palm-shaped cornerpieces, each of these compartments with a blind-stamped leaping stag on a stippled gold ground, raised bands, spine with gilt-ruled compartments, gilt titling, gilt-ruled turn-ins, all edges gilt. In a (somewhat worn) fleece-lined burgundy buckram chemise and marbled paper slipcase. Engraved allegorical frontispiece featuring Diana and Apollo, by Scotin after Gravelot. Front pastedown with morocco ex-libris of Alfred Barmore Maclay. Foxon S-562; Hayward 158; Rothschild 1932; Schwerdt II, 166. âLeather on spine uniformly sunned to olive brown (as expected with green morocco), text perhaps lightly washed and pressed (in keeping with bibliophilic fashion at the time of binding), occasional faint marginal smudges, otherwise fine internally, and in a very lustrous binding with no signs of wear. This is the first edition of the most popular work by Somerville (1675-1742), a mock-heroic poem about hunting, in an apt and very striking binding by a renowned English workshop. Divided into four books of Miltonic blank verse, "The Chace" is considered to be one of the finest didactic poems of the first half of the 18th century. The text covers hounds and their kennels, along with the hunting of hare, fox, and otter, and there are digressions that bring in methods of the chase in exotic localities. Most of the hunts described are accompanied by dogs and set in England past or present, but the poet occasionally strays far afield to describe lion stalking or the hunting habits of Genghis Khan. According to Schwerdt, the book was "highly approved of by the first literary characters of his day." The extraordinarily handsome binding by Riviere incorporates the hunting motif, with four stags appearing to chase one another around the covers. Riviere is one of the foremost names in English binding, partly because the firm did consistently fine work and partly because it was so long in business. Robert Riviere began as a bookseller and binder in Bath in 1829, then set up shop as a binder in London in 1840; in 1881, he took his grandson Percival Calkin into partnership, at which time the firm became known as Riviere & Son, and the bindery continued to do business until 1939. Our volume comes from the library of Alfred Barmore Mackay (1871-1944) who, after a very brief career at his family's bank, devoted himself to collecting books, art, and antiques, engaging in equestrian sports, and designing a sumptuous garden at his Florida estate, now a state park.
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Rare Books (ABAA), McMinnville, OR, U.S.A.