THORNTON, Thomas (1757-1823). A Sporting Tour through Various Parts of France, London, 1806, 2 volumes, 4to, portrait of the author, 53 plates, most aquatints, VERY FINELY BOUND in contemporary green morocco decorated in gilt and blind. FIRST EDITION. (2)

THORNTON, Thomas (1757-1823).  A Sporting Tour through Various Parts of France, in the Year 1802: including a Concise Description of the Sporting Establishments, Mode of Hunting, and Other Field-Amusements, as Practised in that Country. With General Observations on the Arts, Sciences, Agriculture, Husbandry and Commerce ... In a Series of Letters to the Right Hon. The Earl of Darlington. To which is Prefixed, An Account of French Wolf-Hunting. [London:] "Albion-Press Printed: by James Cundee, Ivy-Lane; for Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, Paternoster-Row, and C. Chapple, Pall-Mall," 1806. 2 volumes, 4to (311 x 245mm). Hand-coloured engraved portrait of the author with a falcon, 2 additional engraved titles with vignettes, 53 plates by James Merigot after Joshua Bryant and others, mostly tinted aquatints, some folding, 2-pages of engraved music, vignettes (some very light mainly marginal staining, small spot to the upper edge of the first letterpress title, very short tear to margin of one text leaf). VERY FINELY BOUND in contemporary green panelled morocco elaborately decorated in gilt and blind, the covers with wide borders of a Greek key-pattern and quatrefoils, with four-leaf clover motifs in a square panel at each corner, dentelles gilt, pink endpapers, gilt edges (rubbed and scuffed, especially at the joints and extremities, some scratch marks, corners bumped). Provenance: From the Collection of Wilfrid Ward; LT. COLONEL. THO. THORNTON, Thornville Royal, Falconers Hall & Kenyon House (armorial bookplate); FIRST EDITION. THE AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed "from the author" at the head of the first letterpress title and with his bookplate. "Thornton visited France prior to the revolution, and, with his wife, revisited it in 1802 with the intention of purchasing an estate; but the difficulties of naturalisation and the impending renewal of the war frustrated this project. He was introduced to Napoleon, to whom he presented a pair of pistols, and he joined some French hunting parties. His letters to the Earl of Darlington, giving an account of the trip, were presented by him to an old schoolfellow, a clergyman named Martyn, with liberty to publish them, and they accordingly appeared under the title of 'A Sporting Tour in France'" (DNB). Abbey Travel 84; Schwerdt Hunting, Hawking, Shooting II, pp.259-61; Tooley English Books with Coloured Plates 1790-1860 488. (2)