Basset Hound Breed History & Photos from the 1906 Dog Book by James Watson

Description

Here is an incredibly rare opportunity to acquire this item for your collection. James Watson's monumental work The Dog Book was published at the turn of the 20th century in 1906. Normally a collector of breed specific material would have to shell out hundreds of of dollars for a complete set in fair condition, much more for a fine copy, just to obtain a few pages of information and photos for their collection. This item came from the extensive Monfret Cynological Library of Mr. Francis Fretwell who was at the time the world's greatest bibliophile when it came to all things dog.
Mr. Fretwell was a world reknown breeder of Poodles and Italian Greyhounds. He also served as president of the American Chapters of each organization. His collection was immense, some 15,000 books, plus all kinds of other tidbits from trophies, pedigrees, and ephemera galore. We were in awe when we walked into his estate sale in
February
of 2010. It was a sight to behold. We purchased the majority of his book collection. Unfortunately we only obtained nine of the ten volumes in Watson's set. A note inside volume stated that the set was purchased as an incomplete set of nine volumes.
This wonderful set, sadly, was in poor condition with broken spines, worn cover, torn page edges, and detached pages. With this in mind it seemed natural to sell the set in pieces in order to target breed specific buyers who want to add hard to find items to their collections at a fraction of the cost.
Please note that this listing is only for this breed-specific section taken from James Watson's Classic. The Dog Book (e.g. Poodle, Pug, or Setter). Publisher/Date: Doubleday & Page; 1906. Basset Hound, 4 pages. The text is unmarked. The pages are moderately worn along the edges with a few small closed tears and some creasing. The pages are toned with scattered foxing. There is a musty odor present.
We hope we will have the honor of serving you.
Sincerely,
Shawn and Rebecca