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APPERLEY, Charles James (1778-1843). Six autograph letters signed including two (one signed with his pseudonym, 'Nimrod') to George Brumell, n.p., 'Tuesday Sep[tember] 29th' n.y., and 'Wednesday night 28th' [1837], 6½ pages, 4to, address panel; two to Mr Spiers, Calais, 7 and 22 September 1838, 4 pages, 4to; and two to Robert Smith Surtees, 20 Upper Belgrave Place, 27 March and 1 April 1843, 3 pages, 8vo (the second endorsed with Surtees' autograph reply, signed 'RSS', on the second leaf), together 13½ pages, 8vo and 4to, the letters tipped into an album, 280 x 240mm, modern red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe.
'Nimrod', a stickler for accuracy, complains to Brumell (editor of the New Sporting Magazine) on mistakes in the printing of his Tours and The Life of Mytton, being 'much vexed at not having a proof of the last portion of the Tour ... after the great exertion I made to render it interesting ... I am very sorry to say there were several errata in it, wrong punctuations etc. ... In re. Mytton. Some of the plates are good, others bad ... The night cap spoils one. Such a thing was never on his head since he left the nursery'. He threatens Spiers (also his editor) with the withdrawal of an article on racing at Boulogne, finding 'to my no small mortification, that by the world "trotting" being substituted for "bolting" I am once more made to appear to have written nonsense' and 'I will no longer write for a work the proprietors of which refuse me proofs of my MS'. Two peremptory letters to Surtees mark his reaction to being caricatured in the latter's Handley Cross as 'Pomponius Ego', admitted in Surtees' brief reply annotated on the verso of the first letter, 'P. Ego is meant for Nimrod'.
A fascinating group of letters from Apperley to various correspondents, showing the human side of this famous sporting author. Apperley, whose ruling passions were horses, riding and hunting, created the role of the 'gentleman hunting correspondent' (DNB). He spent some years in Calais to avoid imprisonment for debt.
'Nimrod', a stickler for accuracy, complains to Brumell (editor of the New Sporting Magazine) on mistakes in the printing of his Tours and The Life of Mytton, being 'much vexed at not having a proof of the last portion of the Tour ... after the great exertion I made to render it interesting ... I am very sorry to say there were several errata in it, wrong punctuations etc. ... In re. Mytton. Some of the plates are good, others bad ... The night cap spoils one. Such a thing was never on his head since he left the nursery'. He threatens Spiers (also his editor) with the withdrawal of an article on racing at Boulogne, finding 'to my no small mortification, that by the world "trotting" being substituted for "bolting" I am once more made to appear to have written nonsense' and 'I will no longer write for a work the proprietors of which refuse me proofs of my MS'. Two peremptory letters to Surtees mark his reaction to being caricatured in the latter's Handley Cross as 'Pomponius Ego', admitted in Surtees' brief reply annotated on the verso of the first letter, 'P. Ego is meant for Nimrod'.
A fascinating group of letters from Apperley to various correspondents, showing the human side of this famous sporting author. Apperley, whose ruling passions were horses, riding and hunting, created the role of the 'gentleman hunting correspondent' (DNB). He spent some years in Calais to avoid imprisonment for debt.
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