The American Boy's Book of Sports and Games

Description

The American Boy's Book of Sports and Games, Anonymous, New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1864. First edition, pp. 600, brown cloth boards with gilt, black and blue lettering and decoration in a sporting vein, beveled edges, 600 illustrations including four color plates, gift inscription on free front endpaper.With an early discussion of baseball and its rules in 11 pages, plus a chromolithographic plate by W. Dickes that is considered to be the first-ever color illustration of the new sport. (Porter's Spirit of the Times, a sporting weekly, produced the first black-and-white illustrations of baseball, and was also the first widely issued publication to publish the rules, which tended to vary by region). In addition to the color, there are 6 monochrome illustrations of baseball here.Very scarce; Worldcat shows no copies of this edition in the U.S.; there is one in Britain at Oxford.  Hardcover; 1864; 1st Edition; 1st Printing; The book is in fair condition and was issued without a dust jacket. The book covers have edge wear, rubbing and toning / foxing. There is some fraying to the spine ends, corners and spine joints along with some edge tearing to the spine joints and cloth to the spine. The text pages are generally clean and bright though there are spots of foxing. This book includes an early description of the game of baseball. There are black and white illustrations of the game, along with 10 pages of rules.
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