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 and Merioneth, and Major of the North Shropshire Yeomanry Calvary With notices of his Hunting, Shooting, Driving, Racing, Eccentric and Extravagant Exploits

London: Downey & Co.. Very Good-. 1899. New Edition. Hardcover. 238 pages; Beautifully illustrated with engraved titlepage and twenty full page colour plates by Henry Alken with captioned tissue guards. Contents near fine - clean and tight in contemporary binding of three-quarter dark brown morocco over pale green & cream marbled boards with marbled endpapers. Five raised bands at spine with gilt lettering and decorative gilt devices depicting foxhunting horns and whips. Leather chipped at head of spine; hinges secure, but leather cracking along edges of spine. A still attractive volume; requires careful handling. Charles James Apperley (1777–1843), English sportsman and sporting writer, who published under the pseudonym "Nimrod." Apperley attended Rugby School, then served with the Ancient British Light Dragoons in Ireland. He settled in Warwickshire, where he devoted himself to fox-hunting. Facing financial difficulties, Apperley began to contribute a series of articles to The Sporting Magazine under the pseudonym of "Nimrod", covering horse races, hunt meets and other sporting events. His amusing articles filled with characterizations of the people he knew or met at such events contributed to doubling the circulation of the magazine within a few years. Mr. Pittman, the proprietor of The Sporting Magazine, gave Nimrod a handsome salary and defrayed all the expenses of his tours. He also gave Nimrod a stud of hunters. After Pittman's death, the proprietors of the magazine sued Apperley for the money that had been advanced. To avoid imprisonment, Apperley moved to Calais in 1830, where he supported himself by writing. Apperley is best known for his two books, The Life of a Sportsman, and the one offerred here Memoirs of the Life of John Mytton, both of which were illustrated with coloured engravings by Henry Thomas Alken (1785 –1851). Alken, also an avid sportsman, was an English painter and engraver chiefly known as a caricaturist and illustrator of sporting subjects and coaching scenes. His earliest productions were published anonymously under the signature of "Ben Tallyho", but from 1816 until about 1831, he produced under his own name many sets of etchings of sporting subjects mostly coloured and sometimes humorous in character. .