GUNS AND SHOOTING- By Lt. Col. P. Hawker, 1844 – SOLD

Description

INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN IN ALL THAT RELATES TO GUNS AND SHOOTING, BY Lt. Col. P. Hawker.  Ninth Edition, Corrected, Enlarged, And Improved: With Explanatory Plates And Woodcuts.  LONDON: Longman, Brown, Green, And Longmans, Paternoster-Row.  1844.  Hardcover, embossed blue cloth covers with gold embossed Queen’s (Victoria) Crown.  623 pages (un trimmed), Numerous engraved plates and detailed woodcuts of rifle actions, barrels, canoes and carts, swivel guns apparatus, and more.

Dedication to His Royal Highness Prince Albert (4 years after his marriage to Queen Victoria); prior to that the initial dedication was to King William IV in 1830.

Colonel Peter Hawker (1786- 1853), A well known sportsman, and considered on the best shots of his time. He entered military service in 1801, after purchasing a commission in the 1st Dragoons.  He served with the 14th Dragoons under the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular Campaign. Wounded in 1809 and found unfit for service resigned his commission, but was given the rank of Lt. Col. in the Militia, by the future King of England William IV (then the Duke of Clarence) in 1821.

Hawker is best known for his writing of sportsman shooting and hunting.  He also designed a breechloading swivel gun and it carriage, as well as designing a musket that he submitted to the British Board of Ordnace, but was not used in favor of the Enfield Rifled musket, although some aspects of the Hawker musker were incorporated.

A very tight copy in very good- fine condition. Some areas of soiling on covers, and a bend on back cover (see images).  Even in its ninth edition a rather scarce book.