horse sports

Hardcover. New York, C. M. Saxon & Co, 1st, 1856, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 384 pages. Hardcover. Extensive b&w illustrations throughout. Gilt titles on spine. Blind stamp decoration on covers. Includes appendix of books available from the publisher. Edge wear and tearing to spine. Shelf wear to covers. Foxing to top edge and preliminary pages. Otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Dark Horse Books, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 216 pages. For 15 years Preston has been photographing cartoonists in their natural habitats, the studios in which they work. Revealing the faces behind the familiar drawings, Preston aims his lenses at artists engaged in virtually every realm of cartooning, including superhero comics (Alex Ross, Todd McFarlane); newspaper strips (Cathy Guisewite, Berke Breathed); alternative and underground comics (R. Crumb, the Hernandez brothers); and animation (Chuck Jones, Joseph Barbera). The best portraits capture the spirit of the subjects' work. Mad mainstay Sergio Aragones is surrounded by toy figurines. Loopy caricaturist Arnold Roth's mug sports a wacky grin. Art Spiegelman, known for his formal mastery of the comics medium, looks dead serious. The studio of gritty urban realist Frank Miller looks out on a brick wall. Most welcome are valedictory portraits of titans in the comics field who have passed on since Preston photographed them, including Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, and Carl Barks. Fans of cartooning and of photographic portraiture should enjoy Preston's evocative images of these often-reclusive figures in their working sanctums.

Hardcover. NY, Sovereign Books, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and chipped dust jacket, 270 pages, many b&w illustrations. Remainder stamp to bottom edge, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Lexington KY, John Bradford Press, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 246 pages. Color photographs and B&W illustrations. Pictorial dust jacket with light wear, price-clipped. Green cloth with gilt title to spine. Previous owner's inscription. Overall, a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Library of America, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 594 pages. W. C. Heinz (1915-2008) was one of the most distinctive and influential sportswriters of the last century. Though he began his career as a newspaper reporter, Heinz soon moved beyond the confines of the daily column, turning freelance and becoming the first sportwriter to make his living writing for magazines. In doing so he effectively invented the long-form sports story, perfecting a style that paved the way for the New Journalism of the 1960s. His profiles of the top athletes of his day still feel remarkably current, written with a freshness of perception, a gift for characterization, and a finely tuned ear for dialogue. Jimmy Breslin named Heinz's 'Brownsville Bum"a brief life of Al 'Bummy" Davis, Brooklyn street tough and onetime welterweight champion of the world'the greatest magazine sports story I've ever read, bar none." His spare and powerful 1949 column, 'Death of a Race Horse," has been called a literary classic, a work of clarity and precision comparable to Hemingway at his best. Remainder dot to bottom edge otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Hyperion, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Focusing on the 1999 Derby winner Charismatic, Mitchell traces this horse's amazing and ultimately tragic story, from the birth of the foal through its surprising rise to fame to its tragic death. Mitchell also follows the major players in Charismatic's life, including the family who bred him, the trainer, the owners, and the famed jockey Chris Antley, whose own tragic story matches that of his horse.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1st US, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 288 pages, b&w illustrations. In a worn, frayed dust jacket with a darkened spine. Included also are Veterinary Notes by Col. Todd and a chapter on Pig-Sticking by Lieut. Col. Arthur Brooke. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs and drawings. Not an ex-library copy. No remainder marks. No names or marks in the text. No date but probably 1929.

Hardcover. Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1st, 1860, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 283 pages. Hardcover. Stated Author's Edition. Brick colored end papers scarred & chipped. Small discard stamp on title-page - ex-library with few markings. Short tear to page 7 of preface. Original embossed brown cloth, gilt lettering on spine faded. Uncommon book detailing the hunting of Indian animals, including man-eaters, panthers, bears, buffalo and wild elephants.