This is a first edition of "Memoirs of The Life of The Late John Mytton, Esq., Of Halston, Shropshire; Formerly M.P. for Shrewsbury; High Sheriff for the Counties of Salop & Merioneth, and Major in the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry. With Notices of his Hunting, Shooting, Driving, Racing, And Extravagant Exploits, by Nimrod. With Numerous Illustrations by Alken. Reprinted from the New Sporting Magazine". The book was published in London by Rudolph Ackermann in 1835, at the Eclipse Sporting Gallery and New Sporting Magazine Office, 191, Regent Street, and printed by W. Spiers, 399, Oxford Street in London, and all that makes this a first edition, according to WorldCat and the rare book website we use, and it's in the original binding. The book has the original brown cloth, with incised borders and "The Life Of John Mytton Esq. By Nimrod" in gilt letters on the front cover, drab olive-brown endpapers, two bookplates on the front paste-down, one belonging to George Gordon Massey and the other to John M. Schiff, an inscription on the front flyleaf which reads "John H. Spalding, Lowell, Dec 14 1857, Av 10", a colored frontis with a protective tissue guard, the title page, two pages of Contents, a two-page Preface, 110 pages of text that run from B2 to the end, all twelve plates are aquatints drawn by Henry Alken and hand-colored by E. Duncan, including the frontispiece, with pale blue tissue guards, the plates are unnumbered, and this edition has three plates that were not included in subsequent editions. It also comes with a beautiful outer slipcase and an inner fold-over slipjacket. The plates are unnumbered, but the second, eighth, and ninth plates are present, and those plates were left out of subsequent editions, which makes this a first edition as well. Nimrod was a pseudonym for Charles James Apperley, who was a sports writer and Mytton's neighbor in Shropshire. His task "was to write the life of a man who, while he was one of the most heroic sportsmen that ever lived, was also drunken, diseased and insane", and Apperley "performed the task with admirable judgment". See the next lot for more information about Apperley and John Mytton. John Mortimer Schiff (1904 - 1987) was an American investment banker and philanthropist, a partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Co., as well as a trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a breeder of championship thoroughbred racehorses, he was national president of the Boy Scouts of America from 1951 to 1956, and with his interest in thoroughbred racing, it was a natural for him to own this book. The outer slipcase slides down on top of the book and has gilt-ruled borders which read "The Life Of John Mytton Esqr.", "Nimrod", and "London 1835" in gilt letters on the spine, it was made by Zucker & Henckel of Philadelphia, and the inner slipjacket folds over to protect the book. The book is 8vo. and measures 8 3/8 x 5 1/2 in, wide, with a tight binding and faded gilt on the front cover, most of the pages have clean text and margins, with a few small brown spots in the margins, light rubbing at the crown, faint raised marks at the top of the front cover and the bottom of the back cover, a small nick on the edge of the front flyleaf and a small corner chip on the back endpaper, offset from the plates on some of the tissue guards, faint brown spots on a couple of the tissue guards and browning on the edge of a couple of plates, and two tips are slightly rounded and two tips are lightly turned in. The outer slipcase has a tad of rubbing on one end, and otherwise is in beautiful condition, as is the inner fold-over slipjacket. The book is a rare first edition that gives glimpses into the life of a sporting society in the 1800's, and it comes in the original binding. We've seen other first editions that have been rebound with the original spine and covers bound in, but this book is intact and has not been retouched or repaired as far was we can tell, and it comes with a beautiful outer and inner slipcase. #98 #1637