William Barker Daniel

Rural sports. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, 1807 (volumes 1-3)-1813 (volume 4) 

4 volumes (including 1813 supplement volume), 4to (273 x 214mm.), engraved title-pages, engraved author portrait, 76 plates and tables (all engraved apart from one aquatint in volume 4), contemporary brown diced russia gilt, spines with raised bands in six compartments, marbled edges, marbled endpapers, preliminary leaves spotted, scattered spotting elsewhere, some plates with transfer onto facing leaves, a few plates shaved at margins, joints worn (upper covers of volumes 1 and 2 detached, upper joint of volume 3 weak, volume 4 reinforced at hinges and with repairs at joints fraying and coming loose), extremities slightly rubbed

Daniel's Rural Sports, which proved extremely popular among contemporary sportsmen and naturalists and contains a series of impressive plates, was first published in two volumes in 1801. To this 1807 edition has been added the supplementary volume published in 1813. William Barker Daniel (1754-1833) was a clergyman and one of the earliest writers on English rural sports, from a time before the introduction of modern guns. The present work contain﷽s one of the earliest authentic accounts of wild-fowl shooting with pu𒁏nt and gun. Though ordained as a deacon at Lincoln in December 1785 and as a priest at Gloucester on 12 March 1786, Daniel was never beneficed, and shocked his contemporaries by his devotion to sport in general. In 1788 he was appointed private chaplain to the prince regent, a position he is believed to have retained until retirement.