Humankind's relationship to nature is governed by money in this first US publication of a classic by the greatest chronicler of the British working class

Queen Victoria's top assassin, Lord Alexander Stokes harbors his fair share of dark secrets. Chief among them his membership in an elite brothel. When a damsel-in-distress appeals for his help, he ponders the consequences, yet her similarity to his first love intrigues him. He offers to help her with a single condition: that the beauty consents to be his chattel for an entire year. Given no choice, Julia agrees to his terms. Anything is better than going to the gallows for a murder she did not commit, especially when the real killer is stalking her. Despite her misgivings about being the masked man’s chattel, his raw masculine power lures her in like a hawk to her falconer. Can they learn to trust one another and live long enough to know true love?

This important historical record of the ways of an early gamekeeper is extremely difficult to find in its original printing. First penned in 1820, it was revised, and then published by the author's son in 1851 as a second edition. Very few of either edition remain today. We are now republishing it using the original revised text. Its 200 pages detail the life and work of a keeper in the first half of the 19th century. Some 150 years on, the reader will find much of the contents and advice still remains relevant to gamekeepers and shooting men. The author offers his book as a "Practical book of instruction for the class to which it is particularly addressed, as well as to Sportsmen in general." Thirty-five concise chapters detail methods of preserving game, whilst advice is also given on controlling some thirty species of birds and mammals then considered vermin. Other chapters discuss: Trapping; Poisons; Hereditary Instinct; Observations on Poaching; The Game Laws; Steel Man Traps; Dog Spears; General Observation etc.