Six Centuries of Foxhunting: An Annotated Bibliography

by M. L. Biscotti, Norman Fine editor, FoxhuntingLife, and author of "Foxhunting Adventures: Chasing the S (Foreword by)

Overview

Hunting literature had its beginnings as early as the fourteenth century, when nobles hunted stag, bear, fox, and other game on horseback. As foxhunting grew in popularity, literary works that covered the sport flourished, as well.

In Six Centuries of Foxhunting: An Annotated Bibliography, M. L. Biscotti has compiled all books produced in Great Britain and the United States that pertain to, or mention, foxhunting with hounds. Arranged alphabetically by author, more than 2000 titles are included. Each entry features details such as place and year of publication, publisher, book size, page count, illustrations, and binding. Nearly every title is also annotated with a description of the book’s contents, and biographical sketches are provided for the most notable authors. Narratives, histories, illustrated works, verse, fiction, and even anti-hunting literature all have their place in this volume.

Six Centuries of Foxhunting also features more than thirty images of book covers and foxhunting illustrations. With appendixes that contain author, title, and illustrator time lines, and separate author and title indexes, this comprehensive bibliography is a valuable resource for researchers, book dealers and collectors, and foxhunters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442241893
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/23/2017
Edition description:	Annotated
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

M. L. Biscotti is a retired antiquarian bookseller with a passion for the literature of foxhunting. He is the author of The Borzoi Books for Sportsmen (1992), The American Sporting Book Series (1994), The Bibliography of American Sporting Books (1997) and Paul Brown: Master of Equine Art (2001).

Table of Contents

Foreword, Norman Fine
Acknowledgments
Introduction
A Guide to Using This Book

The Entries A TO Z

Appendix A: A Timeline of the Lives of Some Important Foxhunters and Authors Who Wrote about Foxhunting
Appendix B: A Timeline of the Lives of Some Important Foxhunting Illustrators
Appendix C: A Timeline of Some Important Foxhunting Books
Appendix D: British Publishers’ Sporting Series
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

This book includes the essential facts of every piece of literature published on the subject of foxhunting that has survived to the year 2000. And it’s a reference book that’s readable, too. Antiquarian booksellers, scholars, readers, and writers of sporting literature will be indebted to Duke Biscotti for another century or more.

Norman Fine

Six Centuries of Foxhunting by M.L. 'Duke' Biscotti, a book-dealer, is in a very different league.... Mr. Biscotti and his book will stand alone on their plinth. It's a superb achievement in an unfriendly era.

The Book Collector

Biscotti’s volume is destined to be a bible for antiquarian booksellers, scholars, collectors, and writers of sporting literature. But the book’s appeal will be a great deal broader. Biscotti gives us so much related and fascinating information about the listed author, the subject, and the times that the volume invites browsing, as does a good encyclopedia.... [A] highly useful reference for all who write, read, collect, and study.... Biscotti’s Six Centuries of Foxhunting: An Annotated Bibliography should stand as a one-of-a-kind volume until, say fifty or a hundred years from now, when another obsessive/compulsive (as Biscotti calls himself) with a passion for sporting literature recognizes the need to bring this comprehensive, useful, and informative piece of sporting scholarship up to date once again.

Foxhunting Life

Introducing this unique project in bibliography, former antiquarian bookseller Biscotti explains that he included descriptions of fiction and nonfiction works published before 2000 in English but (with a few exceptions) omitted works dealing with foxhunting using firearms, focusing instead on the sport of foxhunting with hounds and horses. Alphabetically arranged by author, the compilation identifies places of publication, publishers, dates of publication, size, and pagination and offers observations on illustrations followed by brief comments on dust wrappers, where appropriate.... Annotations, largely of author biographies, extend to several paragraphs in places. Appended time lines deal with prominent foxhunters and authors, book illustrators, important foxhunting books, with another appendix listing British publishers' sporting series. An extensive, alphabetically arranged bibliography is followed by author, illustrator, and title indexes.... Nicely produced in clear, computer-generated type and well bound, Biscotti's work will be useful in all libraries collecting works on Anglo-American customs, habits, manners, literature, and history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; general readers.

Choice

Introducing this unique project in bibliography, former antiquarian bookseller Biscotti explains that he included descriptions of fiction and nonfiction works published before 2000 in English but (with a few exceptions) omitted works dealing with foxhunting using firearms, focusing instead on the sport of foxhunting with hounds and horses. Alphabetically arranged by author, the compilation identifies places of publication, publishers, dates of publication, size, and pagination and offers observations on illustrations followed by brief comments on dust wrappers, where appropriate.... Annotations, largely of author biographies, extend to several paragraphs in places. Appended time lines deal with prominent foxhunters and authors, book illustrators, important foxhunting books, with another appendix listing British publishers' sporting series. An extensive, alphabetically arranged bibliography is followed by author, illustrator, and title indexes.... Nicely produced in clear, computer-generated type and well bound, Biscotti's work will be useful in all libraries collecting works on Anglo-American customs, habits, manners, literature, and history.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; general readers.

CHOICE

Introducing this unique project in bibliography, former antiquarian bookseller Biscotti explains that he included descriptions of fiction and nonfiction works published before 2000 in English but (with a few exceptions) omitted works dealing with foxhunting using firearms, focusing instead on the sport of foxhunting with hounds and horses. Alphabetically arranged by author, the compilation identifies places of publication, publishers, dates of publication, size, and pagination and offers observations on illustrations followed by brief comments on dust wrappers, where appropriate.... Annotations, largely of author biographies, extend to several paragraphs in places. Appended time lines deal with prominent foxhunters and authors, book illustrators, important foxhunting books, with another appendix listing British publishers' sporting series. An extensive, alphabetically arranged bibliography is followed by author, illustrator, and title indexes.... Nicely produced in clear, computer-generated type and well bound, Biscotti's work will be useful in all libraries collecting works on Anglo-American customs, habits, manners, literature, and history.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; general readers.

Choice Reviews

This is easily the definitive work on literature of fox hunting available to the general public. M. L. Biscotti, author of several books on American sports, treats the reader to a particular luxury, though an acquired one—the world of fox hunting. This annotated bibliography exhaustively explores six centuries of books printed in Great Britain and the United States that either 'pertains to or mentions fox hunting with hounds.' Obviously a labor of love for the retired antiquarian, Biscotti includes over 2,000 titles and his level of detail into each title is painstaking. This alphabetically arranged work contains: a guide to using this book; four appendixes, several timelines; a further bibliography; an author index, a title index; numerous black-and-white illustrations, and some biographical details on famous or noteworthy authors. Recommended.

American Reference Books Annual

Six Centuries of Foxhunting is a tremendous accomplishment to synthesize the literature of foxhunting into a single reference work. With a direct, user-friendly approach, Duke Biscotti has crafted a must-have volume for anybody with an interest in the history of country sport. The scope of this work is impressive and the insightful annotations transcend traditional bibliography. This is a valuable overview of the history of foxhunting and its literature and is sure to find a place in book collections throughout the sporting community.

John P. Connolly