Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

August 1781 saw the publication of a manual on fox hunting that would become a classic of its genre. Hugely popular in its own day, Peter Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting is often cited as marking the birth of modern hunting and continues to be quoted from affectionately today by the hunting fraternity. Less stressed is the fact that its subject was immediately controversial, and that a hostile review which appeared on the heels of the manual's publication raised two criticisms of fox hunting that would be repeated over the next two centuries: fox hunting was a cruel sport and a feudal, anachronistic one at that. This study explores the attacks made on fox hunting from 1781 to the legal ban achieved in 2004, as well as assessing the reasons for its continued appeal and post-ban survival. Chapters cover debates in the areas of: class and hunting; concerns over cruelty and animal welfare; party politics; the hunt in literature; and nostalgia. By adopting a thematic approach, the author is able to draw out the wider social and cultural implications of the debates, and to explore what they tell us about national identity, social mores and social relations in modern Britain.

Hunting literature had its beginnings as early as the fourteenth century, when nobles hunted stag, bear, fox, and other game on horseback. As foxhunting grew in popularity, literary works that covered the sport flourished, as well. In Six Centuries of Foxhunting: An Annotated Bibliography, M. L. Biscotti has compiled all books produced in Great Britain and the United States that pertain to, or mention, foxhunting with hounds. Arranged alphabetically by author, more than 2000 titles are included. Each entry features details such as place and year of publication, publisher, book size, page count, illustrations, and binding. Nearly every title is also annotated with a description of the book’s contents, and biographical sketches are provided for the most notable authors. Narratives, histories, illustrated works, verse, fiction, and even anti-hunting literature all have their place in this volume. Six Centuries of Foxhunting also features more than thirty images of book covers and foxhunting illustrations. With appendixes that contain author, title, and illustrator time lines, and separate author and title indexes, this comprehensive bibliography is a valuable resource for researchers, book dealers and collectors, and foxhunters.

In the latest novel in this energetic series, ex-special forces soldier Charlie Fox finds herself on a mission to the Iraqi countryside to track down a missing comrade-in-arms. Special forces soldier-turned-bodyguard Charlotte “Charlie” Fox can never forget the men who put a brutal end to her military career, but a long time ago she vowed she would not go looking for them. Now she doesn’t have a choice. Her boss Sean Meyer is missing in Iraq, where one of those men was working as a private security contractor. When the man’s butchered body is discovered, Charlie fears that Sean may be pursuing a twisted vendetta on her behalf. Charlie’s “close protection” agency in New York needs this dealt with—fast and quiet—before everything they’ve worked for goes to ruins. They send Charlie to the Middle East with very specific instructions: Find Sean Meyer and stop him—by whatever means necessary. At one time Charlie thought she knew Sean better than she knew herself, but it seems he’s turned into a violent stranger. Always ruthless, is he really capable of such savage acts of slaughter? As the trail grows ever more bloody, Charlie realizes that she is not the only one after Sean and, unless she can get to him first, the hunter may soon become the hunted.

What does a London-based single mother do on her holidays? With a couple of weeks unexpectedly free and no chance of going away, Jane Shilling decided she would pursue a childhood ambition and learn to ride. A teacher -- Mrs. Rogers -- was easy to find. What she hadn't reckoned on was that Mrs. Rogers was a master of foxhounds. So began Jane's odd, late-blooming affair with foxhunting: the beginning of a passion that was to take her back to the scenes of her childhood and transform her life in ways that were unexpected, often enchanting, and frequently uncomfortable. The Fox in the Cupboard is a vivid account of discovering a hidden, beautiful, and frequently comic world of horses and hunting in a small corner of England. It is a book about searching for the place where you belong, about embarking on an adventure at the very point in your life when you thought it was too late. It is also the story of a journey between the shifting worlds of town and country, childhood and adulthood, and a chronicle of the extraordinary characters the author met along the way.

Today's hunting debate began in the eighteenth century, when the idea of the countryside was being invented through the imaginative displacement of agricultural production in favour of country sports and landscape tourism. Between the Game Act of 1671 and its repeal in 1831, writers on walking and hunting often held opposed views, but contributed equally to the origins of modern ecology, while sharing a commitment to trespass that preserved common rights in an era of growing privatization.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Foxhunting is in Melvin Poe's blood. As a child, he hunted with hounds owned by his grandfather and father in Rappahannock County, Virginia, and he became the professional huntsman for the Old Dominion Hounds for 16 seasons and the Orange County Hunt for 27 years. He is now, at age 82, in his eleventh year as huntsman for the Bath County Hounds. In 1979, Melvin was featured in the film documentary "Thoughts on Hunting. "Author Peter Winants, a lifelong foxhunter, has been the field master at Bath County since the founding of the hunt in 1992. His book ably captures the essence of one of the most legendary and colorful characters in American foxhunting. In addition to Melvin's upbringing, chapters deal with breeding and training foxhounds, his techniques in finding and hunting foxes and the strategies that have led to immense success through the years at hound shows. The final chapter, "Thanks, Melvin," has testimonials from a number of prominent foxhunters who have enjoyed sport with Melvin, including Benjamin H. Hardaway III, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Senator John W. Warner. Foxhunting With Melvin Poe is must reading for foxhunters and anyone who enjoys the countryside and nature.