[ALKEN, Henry]. Qualified Horses and Unqualified Riders … by Ben Tally-Ho. London: S. and J. Fuller, 1 September 1815. Oblong 2° (277 x 380mm). Engraved title, 7 hand-coloured etched plates with deckle edges. (Marginal repairs to plates 1, 4 and 7, plate 7 with spotting at outer edge.) Original buff printed wrappers, front wrapper with title and imprint, inside wrappers and back with publisher’s advertisements (rebacked and resewn); mid 20th-century quarter tan morocco slipcase and chemise, spine lettered longitudinally in gilt (lacks tie pull). Provenance: Reuben Jay Flick (purchased at his sale, 15 March 1946). FIRST ISSUE OF ALKEN’S FIRST HUNTING SATIRE, showing how the untrained rider endangers himself, his horse and others around him. The title is 'lacking from a great many copies' (Dixon) and the wrappers are present even less frequently. As the title is at pains to explain, the work is an ironic sequel to the Indispensable Accomplishments of Robert Frankland, a set of six Leicestershire hunting prints published in June 1811. Where Frankland ‘considered it only necessary that the horse should be well qualified’, Alken aimed to show what the consequences were of mounting ‘well qualified horses with unqualified riders’ – and from his opening verses it seems to be the ‘London Rider’, not used to open country, that he had particularly in mind. The title and plates 3 and 7 have a J. Whatman 1815 watermark. RARE UNCUT COPY IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS. Dixon 4; Mellon/Snelgrove 3; Schwerdt I, p. 20; Siltzer p. 69 and p. 74; Tooley 44.

[ALKEN, Henry]. Qualified Horses and Unqualified Riders … by Ben Tally-Ho. London: S. and J. Fuller, 1 September 1815.