Presentation copy from William Cavendish to John Evelyn with three pages of manuscript in Evelyn’s hand
£19,500.00
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Description
NEWCASTLE, William Cavendish, Duke of (1592-1676).
A New Method, and Extraordinary Invention, to dress Horses, and work them according to Nature. London: Tho. Milbourn, 1667. 2°
Blind ruled, contemporary calf, the folio volume most skillfully re-backed
An important presentation copy from William Cavendish of Bolsover to John Evelyn of Says-Court as referenced in letter of 15 June, 1674 from Evelyn to the Duchess of Newcastle …. “What of greate & noble, that y illustrious Lord has not adorn’d , for I must not forget the munificent present of his very useful book of Horsemanship……
This large paper copy of the first edition has 3 pages of manuscript entirely in John Evelyn’s hand, including a full page and a half of notes on the end leaves detailing various horse remedies.
The manuscript concludes with a remedy by Evelyn’s celebrated architect friend ” Sr Chr Wren who imparted it to me , as received from a German soldier”
This copy with John Evelyn’s usual ownership inscription:
Catalogo JEvelyni inscriptos, together with his motto:‘Omnia Explorate, Meliora Retinete’; i.e. ‘Proove All things, Retaine the Best’
Evelyn further records the author’s gift of the volume to him in 1688
Ex dono Illustriss. Authoris: 1668,
Crossed through press-mark (‘B 42″) on Title page.
The English writer, diarist and bibliophile and great Restoration virtuoso, John Evelyn was introduced to the Duke of Newcastle and his wife while also in exile, through Sir Richard Brown, the English Royalist who served as English representative at the Court of France from 1641-1660.. Brown, whose daughter was married to John Evelyn in 1647, greatly influenced Evelyn’s book collecting.
As Newcastle himself writes in his foreword this is not a translation of the Methode nouvelle, published at Antwerp in 1657, ‘nor an absolutely necessary Addition to it, [but it] may be of use by it self, without the other, as the other hath been hitherto, and is still, without this; but both together will questionless do best’.
William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle (1593-1676), published two horsemanship manuals -the first manual being La Methode Nouvelle et Invention extraordinaire de dresser les Chevaux (Antwerp: 1658), was published in French for the Continental rider, ‘ Newcastle’s second manual, A New Method, and Extraordinary Invention, to Dress Horses (London: 1667), was a different, though closely related, text published in English. The only seminal texts on horsemanship ever produced by an English author’ according to the Johan Dejager, renowned collector of books on horses.
With its remarkable Evelyn provenance, the present volume may be regarded as the most important copy extant of this seminal English text on horsemanship – a work which sets out William Cavendish’s New Method for the rearing, training and management of the ‘horse of mannage’, the ancestor of today’s dressage horse.
” I did during my long exile publish in French a book of horsemanship; and having again, since my return to my native country, had much leisure, in my solitary country life, to recollect my thoughts, and try new experiments about that art; I know, for the more particular satisfaction of my countrymen, print this second book in English which, being neither a translation of the first, nor an absolutely necessary addition to it, may be of use by itself without the other ” – William Cavendish
Published in London by Thomas Milburn in 1667, seven years after William Cavendish’s return to the city, the book informs us of his time in Antwerp where his Riding Academy was installed within Rubens’s house – perhaps in the painter’s former studio. Cavendish writes in an auto-biographical manner replete with anecdotes of his pupils and illustrious visitors. European aristocracy seeking the knowledge of the celebrated expert on horses and dressage were drawn to Cavendish’s Antwerp Academy – a meeting place of the equestrian elite.
As Ursula Harting has written in the excellent publication Royalist Refugees William and Margaret Cavendish in the Rubens House:
“William’s autobiographical notes and his observations about his visitors in Antwerp – aristocrats, cavaliers, military commanders and dressage riders – enrich our image of his time in exile. In order to complete this image, his hitherto ignored publication of 1667 is indispensable. Moreover, it amplifies the rich tapestry of his social life. Going far beyond offering a new method in the high art of riding, his treatise is a rich source of information on the time of the royalist refugees in Antwerp, a subject that until now has not received the attention it deserves.”
Our copy has eight pages bound between 342 and 343. Some bibliographical references indicate a variant issue with forty separately numbered pages inserted between pages 342 and 343 – although in all copies examined both at auction in recent years, and in the major libraries, we only find the usual eight pages between 342 and 343.
This wonderfully preserved volume was Lot 1077 in the March 15, 1978 Christie’s dispersal of The Evelyn Library. The book was acquired at the sale by Maggs Bros for £1,100 hammer.
A uniquely important copy of a landmark publication of equestrian technique