[HANGER, GEORGE]. General George Hanger, to all Sportsmen, Farmers, and Gamekeepers. Above Thirty Years' Practice in Horses and Dogs; to Feed and Cure Them of all Common Disorders and to Save a Dog which has Been Poisoned. Effectually to Catch all Vermin. The Rat-Catching Secret; to Catch Every Rat on the Premises Alive, Without Poison. On Fowling-Pieces, Rifles, and Muskets. To Prevent Partridges Being Taken at Night by Dragnets. To Breed and Feed Pheasants, and Prevent Them Being Destroyed by Night-Shooters and Poachers. To Catch Flocks of Wood-Pigeons and all Water-Fowl. To Shoot Wild-Fowl, Pewits, Golden Plover, Wild Geese, and Bustards, by Night. To Approach Red Deer, Within Thirty or Forty Yards. Of Race Horses; Cure for Cattle Swelled From Eating Clover. Several Valuable Family Receipts, &c., Embellished With a Characteristic Portrait of the Author on his Return From Shooting. London: Printed for J. J. Stockdale, No. 41, Pall-Mall, [1816].
SECOND EDITION; leather-bound, hardcover, octavo (22.5 x 14 x 1.5 cm), pp. 226. English text. Bound in half speckled calf, marbled paper-covered boards, t.e.g., folding frontispiece after R.R. Reinagle & etched by S.Springsguth, printed side- and footnotes. Condition: GOOD. Binding secure. Slight rubbing to extremities. Frontis and title-page somewhat browned and spotted, the contents otherwise well-preserved.
Notes: Second edition, the first with the etched frontispiece, of Hanger’s best known work. The almost reputable product of a controversial career, the text was written by George Hanger (1751-1824), fourth Baron Coleraine, a ‘macaroni’ and ‘one of the dissipated companions of the prince of Wales’ (ODNB), whose life consisted of purchased positions in the military and extravagant spending he could ill afford. He served in the British, Prussian, and Hessian armies, transferring allegiance when promotion was more easily obtained elsewhere, and, despite his upbringing among the Gloucestershire gentry and his education at Eton College, he ‘deliberately set out to conform to the popular caricature of an Irish gentleman’ (ODNB) while also affecting the manners of the French court. A wide-ranging work discussing many elements of field sports, including horse-racing and farriery and interspersed with many tangential observations, the text was first published in 1814 with the author claiming the dubious rank of Colonel, and reappeared in 1816 with an etched frontispiece and the new self-declared promotion to General. Dingley 310; not in Mellon.
